Green 


arve 


orrxii/iLj/jL  i\./\i  xii  )3iiJiiijL 


mimsijY  Of  mfORm 
Rimsm 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 


Green  Apple  Harvest 


BY 

SHEILA  KAYE-SMITH 

AUTHOR    OF    "tamarisk    TOWN,"    "A    CHALLENGE    TO    SIRIUS," 

ETC,    ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright,  1921, 
BY  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved. 

First  Printing,  April,  1921. 

Second  Printing,  May,  1921. 

Third  Printing,  December,  igsi. 


Print'sfl  la  the  TTnlt»a  States  of  America 


TO 
MY  FATHER  AND   MOTHER 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Part    I  i        ........         i 

Part  II  •••;•••..     177 


PART  I 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 


PART  I 

§1 

The  Fullers  of  Bodingmares  had  lived  in  the  parish  of  High 
Tilt  for  nearly  three  hundred  years.  They  had  come  into  the 
neighbourhood  as  Forest  Squires,  impoverished  by  Royal 
Charles,  to  eat  the  bread  of  poverty  and  retreat  during  the 
days  of  the  Commonwealth.  They  had  sunk  into  the  country 
of  their  seclusion — when  their  Cause  revived  they  did  not  re- 
vive with  it.  The  concerns  of  a  Sussex  village  received  their 
souls  just  as  its  churchyard  soil  received  their  bodies. 

The  Fullers  mixed  no  more  with  prelates  and  nobles,  but 
with  country  parsons  and  small  squires.  Then,  as  Bodingmares 
sank  from  manor  to  farmhouse,  so  their  company  sank  to 
farmers  and  marsh-graziers;  and,  as  time  went  on  and  the 
big  farms  of  the  Rother  Valley  grew  and  exalted  themselves 
over  Bodingmares,  to  the  small  men  among  these,  the  tenants, 
the  copy-holders,  the  fifty-acre  men.  Slowly  yet  remorselessly 
the  country  of  the  Rother  Levels  was  eating  up  the  Fullers. 

Bodingmares  stood  close  to  where  the  River  Rother  and  the 
River  Dudwell  flow  together  in  the  flats  beneath  Haremere 
Hall.  The  dwelling-house,  spiked  about  with  Lombardy  pop- 
lars, stood  among  its  barns  and  oasts  on  the  high  ground  by 
Bugshull  Wood,  but  the  Fullers'  land — their  fields  of  skinny 
oats,  their  sheep  pastures,  their  acres  of  turnips  and  wurzels — 
sloped  down  to  the  brookside,  and  found  shelter  there  for  a 
loop-shaped  hop  garden,  in  summer  a  place  of  green  twilight 
and  scented,  steaming  air. 

The  Fuller  in  present  occupation  was  James  Fuller,  lately 

3 


4  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

from  Bulverhythe,  where  he  had  managed  a  fairly  prosperous 
market-garden  till  the  death  of  a  childless  uncle  put  him  in 
half-reluctant  possession  of  two  hundred  acres.  He  was  town 
bred,  though  not  town  born,  and  this  may  have  been  one 
reason  why  he  broke  the  long  tradition  of  the  Fullers  and 
worshipped  at  the  Primitive  Methodist  Chapel  instead  of  at 
the  Parish  Church.  The  Fullers  had  long  forgotten  that  they 
owed  their  mean  estate  to  their  allegiance  to  the  Church,  but 
it  was  a  convention  in  High  Tilt,  indeed  in  most  agricultural 
parishes,  that  a  yeoman  farmer  could  never  go  to  chapel,  and 
by  outraging  this  convention  James  earned  a  mean  opinion 
from  his  neighbours. 

Many  a  man  on  discovering  his  blunder  would  have  rectified 
it,  but  not  so  James.  To  the  Methodists  he  owed  the  wonder 
of  his  conversion,  his  place  among  the  elect,  the  occasional 
raptures  that  broke  the  chill  cloudiness  of  his  experience.  He 
even  waxed  bitter  in  his  constancy,  and  spoke  hard  things  to 
his  children  about  the  Church  which  had  departed  from 
Apostolic  tradition  and  compromised  with  the  severer  dogmas 
of  grace. 

He  had  two  children  by  his  first  wife  Susan  Sharman,  who 
had  been  very  like  him  in  temperament,  though  she  had  always 
set  more  store  than  he  on  respectability  and  the  neighbours. 
She  died  before  he  left  Bulverhythe,  and  he  had  gone  into  the 
country  as  a  widower  with  a  boy  and  girl.  Then  one  market 
day  in  High  Tilt  he  had  met  Elizabeth  Boumer,  driving  her 
father's  trap  behind  his  cattle;  and  her  soft  face,  with  deep 
dimples  in  the  hearts  of  the  roses  on  her  cheeks,  her  round, 
sweet  mouth  like  another  rose,  and  her  hair  flying  dustily 
golden  like  pollened  anthers,  had  stirred  in  him  feelings  which 
he  had  thought  would  never  stir  again.  They  did  not  belong 
to  his  memories  of  Susan,  whom  he  had  married  from  practical 
motives,  so  much  as  to  the  memories  of  a  past  put  away  and 
wished  forgotten,  of  the  days  before  the  Lord  changed  his 
heart.  But  he  could  not  think  them  evil,  linked  as  they  were 
with  the  flower  of  Elizabeth's  face,  with  her  sweetness  which 
seemed  to  hold  the  dew  on  it  still.  So  he  had  yielded  to  them, 
after  much  prayer;  and  as  she  was  sorry  for  him,  with  his  eyes 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  5 

both  sad  and  triumphant  and  his  tongue  both  kind  and  sour, 
she  had  married  him  and  become  the  humble  successor  of  those 
Cavalier  ladies  who  had  submitted  too  well  to  their  seclusion. 

One  evening  in  October  James  Fuller  stood  in  the  yard, 
waiting  for  his  two  sons  by  his  second  wife.  The  elder  children 
were  already  at  tea  with  their  stepmother  in  the  kitchen,  but 
these  boys  of  Elizabeth's  were  late,  as  usual.  He  was  vexed 
and  irritated,  for  that  night  he  was  taking  his  family  to  a 
Revival  Service  at  High  Tilt.  His  mouth  stretched  into  a 
line  which  might  have  been  a  smile  if  it  had  not  been  so  thin 
and  tragic.  If  anything  was  left  out  of  the  evening's  pro- 
gramme it  should  be  the  young  men's  tea.  Then  the  line  of 
his  mouth  gagged  towards  his  chin — he  remembered  that  he 
could  not  make  Robert  go  without  his  tea  if  he  wanted  to 
have  it.  Robert  was  grown  up,  twenty-two  at  Michaelmas, 
and  for  five  years  at  least  his  father  had  been  incapable  of 
making  him  do  anything  he  did  not  like.  Clem  he  could  still 
force  a  bit,  for  Clem  was  only  seventeen  and  vulnerable;  but 
he  did  not  care  so  much  about  Clem,  whose  docility  had  never 
challenged  his  weakness.  It  was  that  big,  heavy,  bounding 
Robert — all  health  and  sin — whom  James  would  have  liked  to 
subdue.    Sometimes  in  dreams  he  took  it  out  of  Robert. 

"Maaster!"  His  wife's  voice  came  from  the  house,  calling 
him  in  to  his  heaped  plate  and  cooling  teacup.  He  turned 
away,  a  broad,  stooping  figure  in  his  chapel  blacks,  and  passing 
through  the  outer  kitchen,  with  its  wash-copper  and  bricked 
floor,  entered  the  warm  room  where  Elizabeth  Fuller  ate  bread 
and  butter  and  cheese  and  onions  with  Susan  Sharman's  chil- 
dren. 

Jim  was  like  his  father,  but  just  lacking  in  those  qualities 
wherein  James  redeemed  himself  by  w-eakness.  He  had  his 
father's  hard,  thin  mouth,  but  without  its  rather  sorrowful 
flexibility,  he  had  his  father's  eyes  without  their  light.  For 
the  rest,  he  was  a  well-built  man  of  thirty,  and  he  seemed 
to  James  to  have  grown  up  like  a  tree,  from  a  fixed  root.    He 


6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

had  never  seen  in  his  son  any  of  the  shifts  and  stresses  common 
to  young  men,  such  as  had  formed  so  unforgettably  a  part  of 
his  own  youth — no  more  than  he  could  detect  in  him  any 
warmth  or  flicker  of  his  own  spiritual  fires. 

Mary  was  not  unlike  her  brother,  two  years  younger,  with 
bright,  active  eyes.  She  did  most  of  the  talking  during  the 
meal,  for  Elizabeth  was  planning  a  gown  in  her  head,  to  be 
made  out  of  the  gown  of  the  last  five  summers,  with  some  new 
stuff,  and  James  was  brooding,  and  Jim  was  hungry. 

"I'm  middling  tired  of  waiting  my  meals  for  them  boys,'' 
said  Mary;  "only  last  Sunday  the  meat  was  spoiled  because 
of  them,  though,  I  mun  say,  Mother,  as  you'd  got  the  oven 
too  hot  .  .  .  it's  a  waste  to  heap  a  fire  these  days,  and  the 
meat  cooks  all  the  better  if  you  cook  it  slow.  You  cud  see 
as  that  bit  of  loin  wur  cooked  too  quick  as  well  as  too  long. 
Howsumdever,  it  maade  it  a  wuss  job  waiting  for  them  two  as 
ud  never  bin  to  Church,  but  gone  roving  in  the  fields  lik 
heathen,   never  thinking  as  they  wur  spoiling  good  meat." 

"We  haven't  waited  our  tea  fur  them,  anyhows,"  said  Eliza- 
beth mildly;  "reckon  it'll  be  tedious  cold  by  the  time  they 
git  it." 

"Sarve  'em  right.  I  can't  abear  wud  them  wot  never  thinks 
food  has  to  be  cooked  as  well  as  eaten." 

"Here  they  are,"  said  Jim,  with  his  mouth  full. 

A  quick  step  sounded  in  the  yard,  the  outer  door  crashed 
open,  someone  said  "Shoo! "  to  the  cat,  then  the  kitchen  door 
burst  in  with  tlie  same  violence  as  the  other,  and  an  atmosphere 
of  vitality  and  disruption  seemed  to  enter  the  room  with  Eliza- 
beth's elder  son. 

"Where's  Clem?"  asked  Mary. 

"I  dunno;  I  reckon  he's  out  wud  Polly.  Hi,  Mother,  I'll 
taake  a  cup  of  tea." 

"If  you're  thirsty  I  guess  it  aun't  from  want  of  drinking," 
said  Mus'  Fuller,  sniffing  at  the  strong  smell  of  beer  that  had 
come  into  the  room  with  Robert. 

Robert  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  stuck  out  his  legs  before 
him.  He  looked  older  than  his  years.  His  face  was  florid,  and 
there  was  a  little  dark  moustache  on  his  upper  lip,  shading 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  7 

without  hiding  the  full  curves  of  his  mouth.  His  eyes  were 
blue,  and  also  rather  full,  his  hair  was  dark  and  carefully 
oiled.  He  was  dressed  after  the  manner  of  the  exquisites  in 
High  Tilt — in  a  fawn  coat  and  checked  riding-breeches,  with 
leather  gaiters  and  boots. 

"I  had  two  Basses  wud  Pix  and  Boorman  at  the  George, 
and  a  Barclay  Perkins  over  at  the  Woolpack  wud  old  Pepper. 
Otherwise  it's  bin  a  dry  afternoon." 

James  Fuller  groaned. 

"That's  how  j^ou  git   ready   for  Meeting." 

"I'll  sing  all  the  better  wud  a  wet  throat" — and  still  tilting 
backwards  in  his  chair,  his  blue  eyes  fixed  on  the  ceiling, 
Robert  began: 

"There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  Blood, 
Drawn  from  Emanuel's  veins." 

"Hoald  your  tongue,  you  blaspheming  sinner!"  cried  James. 
But  Robert,  who  enjoyed  the  hymn,  sang  on  in  his  lusty, 
untrained  voice: 

"I  do  believe,  I  will  believe 
That  Jesus  died  for  me, 
That  on  the  cross  He  shed  His  Blood, 
From  sin  to  set  me  free." 

James  shot  up  with  a  clenched  hand. 

"Maaster  dear,"  broke  in  Elizabeth. 

"Doan't  meddle,  Eliza.  You've  a-done  enough  harm  in  giv- 
ing me  such  a  son  as  him  here,  who  spends  his  afternoon  in 
drinking  and  his  evening  in  blasphemy " 

"Why  is  it  blasphemy  fur  me  to  sing  a  hymn  at  my  tea, 
and  all  good  and  holy  if  I  sing  it  in  Church?" 

"You  wur  singing  it  to  mock." 

"I  wurn't." 

"Git  on  wud  your  tea,  Faather,"  said  Mary  briskly,  "or 
there'll  be  no  chapel  fur  none  of  us." 

James  turned  with  a  grumble  to  his  food.  Robert's  behaviour 
annoyed  him  even  more  than  Clem's,  though  he  knew  that  the 
latter  was  trying  to  dodge  chapel,  whereas  the  former  was 


8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

willing  enough  to  go.  Curiously  enough,  in  spite  of  his  un- 
couth spirits  and  regrettable  behaviour,  Robert  had  always 
enjoyed  going  to  services  and  bawling  hymns,  while  docile 
Clement  had  in  this  matter  shown  himself  truant  and  intract- 
able. 

To-night  he  might  altogether  have  escaped  his  obligations 
had  not  Robert's  late  arrival  and  hearty,  impenitent  tea  de- 
layed the  setting  out  of  the  others.  They  all  came  out  with 
a  scurry,  dark  shapes  tumbling  into  the  thick  autumn  dusk, 
and  startled  two  figures  just  coming  in  at  the  yard  gate. 

"Oo-er!" 

"That  you,  Clement?" 

"Yes,  Faather — me  and  Polly." 

A  faint  yellow  moon  had  swum  above  the  stacks,  and  put  a 
honey-coloured  stain  on  the  mists  of  the  yard.  In  the  thick 
radiance  the  shapes  of  the  boy  and  girl  were  smudged  together 
as  they  stood  hand  in  hand. 

"You  tedious  young  vagabond"  cried  James  Fuller.  "I 
know  you!  Sneaking  in  after  you  thought  as  we'd  gone  to 
chapel.  You  thought  as  you'd  pick  a  valiant  supper  off  the 
plates.  But  you  shan't  have  a  bit,  surelye.  You'll  come  along 
wud  us  to  the  Prayer  Meeting  this  wunst.  .  .  .  And  you, 
Polly  Ebony,  git  hoame  to  your  folk.  I'm  hemmed  if  I'll  see 
you  spannelling  over  the  parish  wud  my  boy,  kipping  him 
from  his  salvation.    Git  you  gone! " 

Polly  Ebony  stared  round  at  the  dim  faces;  then  she  put 
out  her  tongue  at  James  Fuller,  and,  suddenly  diving  in  an- 
ticipation of  the  sweep  of  his  hand,  turned  and  ran  away. 

"She's  lik  her  folk,"  said  James,  glaring  after  her.  "That's 
valiant  company  fur  Clem  to  kip — reckon  she  comes  of  no 
class  of  people;  they're  a  black  lot  over  at  Orznash,  and 
Polly's  naun  but  a  lump  of  reprobation." 

"I'm  unaccountable  sweet  on  her,"  muttered  Clem. 

"Hoald  your  licentious  tongue,  and  step  out  beside  me." 

Clem  threw  an  entreating  glance  at  his  mother  and  Robert, 
but  found  that  no  help  was  to  be  had  from  that  quarter.  It  is 
true  that  Elizabeth  came  forward  with  her  gentle  "Maaster 
dear "  but  James  told  her  not  to  meddle — quite  gently, 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  9 

since  he  was  not  afraid  of  yielding  to  her.  As  for  Robert,  he 
only  laughed  immoderately,  thinking  how  jolly  well  Clem  had 
been  had. 

§3 

Clem  was  not  angry  because  Robert  laughed  at  him;  in- 
deed, he  felt  a  vague  satisfaction  in  having  contributed  to  his 
entertainment.  He  plodded  on  meekly  enough  through  the 
thick  yellow  twilight,  every  now  and  then  blowing  on  his  cold 
hands.  He  was  of  a  very  different  build  from  his  brother,  being 
short  and  lightly  made,  though  sturdy  enough.  He  had  queer, 
woolly  black  hair,  curling  over  his  head  like  a  lamb's  fleece, 
and  his  eyes  were  a  clear  brownish  yellow,  like  pools  in  a  lane. 
Otherwise  his  face  was  just  the  face  of  a  common  Sussex  boy, 
with  wide  mouth  and  short  nose,  and  a  skin  of  Saxon  fairness 
under  the  summer's  tan. 

The  moon  was  climbing  up  above  the  mists,  and  among 
them  huddled  the  still  shapes  of  the  sleeping  country,  dim 
outlines  of  woods  and  stacks  and  hedges.  Here  and  there  a 
star  winked  across  the  fields  from  a  farmhouse  window,  or  a 
pond  caught  the  faint,  fog-thickened  light  of  the  moon.  There 
was  no  wind,  only  a  catch  of  frost  on  the  motionless  air,  and 
the  mist  had  muffled  all  the  lanes  into  silence,  so  that  even 
the  small  sounds  of  the  night — the  barking  of  a  dog  at 
Bantony,  the  trot  of  hoofs  on  the  high  road,  the  far-off  scream 
and  groan  of  a  train,  the  suck  of  all  the  Fullers'  feet  in  the 
mud — were  hushed  to  something  even  fainter  than  the  munch 
of  cows  on  the  other  side  of  the  hedge. 

The  Methodist  Chapel  stood  at  the  Throws  just  beyond 
the  village,  where  one  road  goes  to  Mountpumps  and  Little 
Pix  Hall,  and  another  goes  into  Kent  by  Switesden  and  Mer- 
riment Farm,  and  a  third  goes  adventurously  and  ultimately 
to  London,  though  the  sign-post  refuses  to  see  it  further  than 
Ticehurst,  five  miles.  The  door  was  open,  and  the  lamplight 
and  the  smell  of  lamp  oil  came  out  together.  Mus'  Fuller 
took  off  his  hat,  and  shook  hands  with  Mus'  Cox  of  Haisel- 
man's  and  Mus'  Bream  of  Little  Moat,  who  were  standing  in 


lo  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

the  entrance  with  hymn-books.  Mus'  Cox  said  that  the  Mis- 
sioner  had  been  much  favoured  in  his  discourses  elsewhere, 
and  he  hoped  that  the  High  Tilt  Revival  would  be  equally 
blessed;  Mus'  Bream  said  hoarsely  that  it  was  valiant  weather 
fur  roots. 

The  Fullers  sat  in  a  pew  very  near  the  front,  only  at  a 
third  remove  from  the  towering,  pitch-pine  pulpit  with  its 
cushion  and  sounding-board.  Everybody  stared  at  them, 
partly  because  they  were  the  aristocracy  of  a  congregation  of 
tenant-farmers  and  tradesmen,  partly  because  it  was  the  cus- 
tom in  those  parts  to  stare.  The  Fullers  stared  back — all 
except  James,  who  opened  and  read  his  Bible.  Clem  sat  next 
his  father,  which  was  unfortunate,  as  no  amount  of  spiritual 
concentration  seemed  to  make  James  insensible  to  his  son's 
many  lapses  from  decorum.  Robert,  at  the  end  of  the  seat,  was 
in  happier  circumstances,  being  free  to  ogle  Janie  Luck,  the 
grocer's  daughter,  who  sat  in  the  gallery. 

Soon  there  was  a  whispering  and  scuffling  at  the  back  of 
the  church,  and  a  murmur  went  round:  "It's  the  gipsies," 
"The  gipsies  have  come." 

The  gipsies  lived  in  a  big  old  cottage  called  Blindgrooms, 
at  the  beginning  of  High  Tilt  Street,  and  were  represented  to- 
night by  old  Leonora  Iden  and  her  daughter  Hannah,  with  two 
young  men  in  corded  velveteens.  It  was  not  really  surprising 
to  see  them,  for  they  often  came  to  chapel,  or  even  to  Church, 
if  they  thought  anything  was  to  be  got  by  it,  and  old  Leonora 
always  said  she  loved  a  holy  place.  They  were  not  pure-bred 
gipsies,  or  they  would  not  have  lived  in  a  house — they  were 
off-shoots  of  the  big  Ripley  family,  who  had  somehow  found 
their  way  under  a  roof.  They  owned  Blindgrooms,  and  one 
or  two  other  cottages  in  High  Tilt  and  the  neighbouring  parish 
of  Salehurst,  and  were  obviously  well-to-do,  though  that  did 
not  keep  the  men  from  poaching,  or  the  women  from  selling 
clothes-pegs  and  baskets. 

Clem  felt  the  charm  of  their  outlawry,  and  craned  round 
in  his  pew  to  see  them  better.  Old  Leonora  was  hideous,  with 
her  wrinkled  face  and  unvenerable  black  hair,  but  the  men 
were  handsome,  dapper  little  fellows,  and  Hannah  was  lovely. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  ii 

She  was  the  colour  of  a  hazel  nut,  with  dark  red  lips.  Clem 
stared  at  her  fascinated,  but  she  would  not  look  at  him,  and 
he  realized  that  she  was  answering  the  stare  of  his  brother 
Robert,  who  had  taken  his  eyes  off  the  too  responsive  Janie 
Luck.  Clem  was  shocked— no  one  in  High  Tilt  ever  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  gipsies,  and  by  ogling  Hannah,  Robert 
was  flouting  convention  more  boldly  than  he  had  ever  done 
before.  .  .  .  Then,  to  his  surprise,  he  saw  that  Robert  had 
flushed  and  turned  away,  and  was  staring  at  the  pulpit,  where 
the  Missioner  now  stood. 

The  service  began  with  the  hymn  "Rock  of  Ages."  Clem 
enjoyed  the  hymn,  and  sang  it  nearly  as  loud  as  Robert, 
though  no  one  could  sing  a  hymn  quite  as  loud  as  Robert 
Fuller,  standing  there  with  his  chest  throwoi  out  and  his  legs 
wide  apart  and  his  eyes  fixed  sentimentally  on  the  ceiling. 
He  sang  so  loud  that  when  he  went  wrong,  which  happened 
once  or  twice,  all  the  congregation  lapsed  with  him,  ignoring 
the  efforts  of  Miss  Bream  at  the  harmonium  or  the  minister's 
hand  beating  solemnly  up  and  down. 

\\'hen  the  hymn  was  finished,  they  leaned  forward  over 
their  knees,  with  their  handkerchiefs  up  to  their  mouths,  while 
the  minister  said  a  prayer.  Then  they  all  settled  themselves 
for  the  sermon.  Experience  told  Clem  that  this  might  last 
very  nearly  an  hour,  and  he  looked  round  for  ways  of  making 
the  time  pass  pleasantly.  One  good  way  was  to  exchange 
winks  \\ith  Robert,  but  Robert  was  always  odd  and  unre- 
liable in  church,  and  to-day  he  sat  quite  unsusceptible  to 
winks,  with  his  arms  folded  across  his  chest  and  his  eyes  fixed 
on  the  preacher.  Another  good  way  was  to  suck  a  peppermint, 
and  Clem  accordingly  took  one  out  of  the  corner  of  his  hand- 
kerchief, sucking  it  meditatively  and  not  quite  noiselessly, 
while  he  stared  at  the  pitch-pine  front  of  the  pulpit.  He 
thought  about  the  lane  outside,  how  it  lay  in  the  thick  muffle 
of  the  fog,  with  a  sweet,  moist  smell  of  mist  and  mud  rising 
up  from  it.  .  .  .  It  was  queer  that  thinking  of  the  lane  outside 
made  him  feel  good,  while  chapel  did  not  make  him  feel  good 
at  all.  Other  things  that  made  him  feel  good  were  little  new- 
bom  animals,  the  red  sky-rim  at  dusk,  and  suet  pudding  for 


12  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

dinner.  Bob  was  different,  he  knew.  Bob  always  felt  good  in 
church,  even  when  he  was  making  eyes  at  girls.  .  .  . 

Clem  made  himself  a  little  island  with  his  thoughts,  and 
took  refuge  in  it  away  from  the  stuffy  chapel  and  the  pitch- 
pine  pews  and  the  congregation  that  smelt  of  moth-killer  and 
peppermints.  The  preacher's  words  seemed  to  batter  like  waves 
round  his  little  island;  he  heard  them  moaning  and  droning 
round  him  like  the  sea;  they  could  not  come  near  him,  they 
could  not  reach  him.  The  moon  hung  very  dim  and  flat  over 
his  head — it  was  like  a  smoky  plate,  there  were  shadows  on  it. 
The  sky  was  red  at  the  rims,  for  the  frost  was  out  and  had 
frozen  the  rims  of  the  sky  and  the  water  in  the  chickens' 
trough  and  all  the  thick  brown  puddles  in  the  lane.  .  .  .  The 
stars  were  flashing  as  they  always  flashed  on  frosty  nights — 
they  jumped  and  jigged  to  keep  themselves  warm.  There  was 
the  dipper — you  always  knew  the  old  dipper  by  the  way  it 
swung  from  its  handle,  slowly  round,  all  night.  It  was  funny 
to  think  of  pots  and  pans  in  the  sky.  .  .  .  The  sky  seemed 
full  of  homely  things — all  glittering  and  gleaming.  Why 
couldn't  there  be  some  of  them  in  Church?  Why  must  every- 
thing lovely  and  homely  be  left  outside?  Inside  here  there 
were  no  stars — only  God,  shouting  at  him.  That  was  God 
shouting:  "Turn,  sinners,  turn  to  Me!"  He  felt  all  the  sin- 
ners scrambling  over  him  as  they  jumped  out  of  their  pews 
and  rushed  to  God.  They  were  trampling  on  him,  smothering 
him;  they  were  kicking  him  in  the  ribs.  .  .  .  Oh! 

He  sat  up,  choking,  and  wriggled  away  from  his  father's 
elbow.  It  was  not  the  first  time  he  had  fallen  asleep  during 
a  sermon,  but  custom  had  not  yet  staled  the  sense  of  guilt. 
He  must  be  quite  unconverted;  only  unconverted  people  slept 
in  sermon  time — with  a  peppermint  in  his  mouth,  too;  that 
was  what  had  made  him  choke. 

The  sermon  was  now  flowing  on  with  the  same  peaceful 
strenuousness  as  before.  Indeed,  he  could  not  really  tell  if 
it  had  been  interrupted.  He  tried  to  atone  for  his  lapse  by 
listening  to  the  rest  of  it.  Fortunately  it  was  nearly  over. 
He  saw  with  shame  that  no  one  else  had  fallen  asleep,  not 
even  Leslie  Dunk.     On  the  contrary,  several  leaned  forward 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  13 

in  their  seats,  with  their  eyes  and  mouths  wide  open  and  other 
symptoms  of  profound  attention.  Robert  was  among  these. 
He  sat  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  preacher's  face,  his  jaw  drop- 
ping towards  his  flashy  tie,  a  few  beads  of  sweat  on  his  fore- 
head. 

"Now,  brothers  and  sisters,"  said  the  Missioner,  "before 
I  sit  down  there  is  something  I  should  like  to  ask  of  you  here. 
Will  those  who  have  felt  the  grace  of  God  in  their  souls  stand 
up  and  be  witnesses  to  the  congregation?" 

He  had  a  pleasant,  persuasive  voice,  with  a  west-country 
accent,  and  Clem  was  smitten  with  renewed  penitence.  He 
would  have  stood  up  himself  if  everyone  had  not  most  likely 
known  he  had  been  asleep.  He  looked  roimd  to  see  the  effect 
of  the  minister's  words,  hoping  for  a  good  response.  One  or 
two  old  men  and  women  stood  up,  and  a  young  man  with  a 
turned-down  linen  collar.  The  gipsies  were  also  standing  up, 
their  eyes  fixed  intently  on  the  preacher.  But  no  one  took 
any  notice  of  them,  for  they  always  "testified"  at  every  meet- 
ing. Clem  turned  back  in  his  seat,  and  then  was  utterly  con- 
founded, for  his  .brother  Robert  was  standing  up,  breathing 
very  hard  through  his  open  mouth. 

There  he  stood,  a  great  hulking,  strapping  creature — the 
most  conspicuous  object  in  the  room  in  his  fancy  waistcoat 
and  check  breeches.  His  face  was  crimson,  and  he  looked 
half  dazed.  Clem  felt  a  thrill  go  down  his  backbone.  Robert 
Vv'as  Saved.  Robert  was  a  Believer — he  who  had  been  brought 
home  drunk  only  a  week  ago.  Would  he  never  get  drunk  any 
more?  Would  he  never  play  "crown  and  anchor"  at  the  pub? 
Would  he  never  have  any  more  girls?  Would  he  .  .  .  Oh, 
how  Clem  wished  he  had  listened  to  that  sermon  and  heard 
what  it  was  that  had  so  powerfully  moved  Robert's  heart. 
Had  God  really  said:    "Turn,  sinners,  turn  to  Me"? 

There  was  a  faint  scuffle  and  mutter  in  the  church.  Some 
people  were  angry  to  see  Robert  Fuller  standing  up.  "Reckon 
he  doan't  know  what  he's  doing — reckon  he  doan't  mean  naun, 
no  more'n  the  gipsies."  .  .  .  "Bob  Fuller's  got  salvation," 
young  Tom  Shovell  whispered  behind  his  hand  in  the  next 
pew.    And,  "Bad  days  fur  the  Royal  George,"  came  the  ribald 


14  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

answer  of  his  brother  Stan.     Clem  glared  at  them.     He  felt 
proud  of  Robert,  standing  there  among  the  Elect. 


§4 

He  was  surprised  to  find  that  none  of  the  family  seemed 
to  share  his  pride  and  deference.  Both  on  the  walk  home 
and  at  supper  afterwards  their  words  and  behaviour  expressed 
doubt  if  not  condemnation.  Mary  was  vexed  because  Robert 
had  made  a  gazing-stock  of  them  all.  Jim  said  it  would  have 
been  well  if  Robert  had  managed  to  keep  sober  for  a  month 
before  he  got  converted,  and  he'd  point  out  to  him  that  it 
wouldn't  be  a  bad  idea  to  keep  sober  for  at  least  a  month 
afterwards.  His  mother  was  perplexed  and  a  little  worried 
because  she  thought  he  must  be  feeling  poorly.  As  for  his 
father — that  was  Clem's  greatest  surprise,  for  he  had  thought 
his  father,  that  pious,  religious  man,  would  be  full  of  delight 
at  his  son's  testimony.  But  Mr.  Fuller  seemed  positively 
annoyed  by  it,  and  thought  that,  like  his  singing  hymns  at 
supper,  it  was  done  to  mock. 

"I  wurn't  mocking,"  mumbled  Robert.  He  spoke  very  little 
at  supper,  though  he  ate  a  great  deal. 

"Then  you  mean  to  tell  me  as  you're  praaperly  saved?" 

Bob  wriggled  in  his  chair. 

''I  dunno." 

"Wot  d'you  mean —  You  dunno  as  you're  saved?  I  tell 
you  as  there  aun't  never  no  mistaake  about  that.  As  the 
lightning  shineth  from  one  part  of  heaven  to  another.  .  .  . 
Wot  did  you  stand  up  for  if  you  didn't  know  as  you  were 
saved?" 

Robert  filled  his  mouth  quite  full  of  pudding,  and  was 
silent. 

"Are  you  convinced  of  sin?"  asked  his  father  solemnly. 

Clem  felt  quite  sorry  for  his  brother.  He  looked  so  utterly 
sheepish,  and  sat  there  swallowing  painfully — cramming  in 
fresh  spoonfuls  of  pudding  before  he  had  swallowed  what  he 
already  had  in  his  mouth,  till  he  nearly  choked.     He  was 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  15 

quite  unlike  the  cheerful,  swaggering  Robert  who  so  often  put 
the  table  in  an  uproar. 

"You're  a  fool,"  said  James  Fuller.  "You're  that  if  you're 
no  wuss,  surelye," 

At  half-past  nine  Clem  and  Robert  were  alone  in  their  large 
low  room  at  the  back  of  the  house,  looking  out  on  Bugshull 
Wood.  It  was  a  very  big  room  and  their  beds  were  at  op- 
posite ends  of  it,  so  that  a  whole  country  of  shadows  divided 
them.  But  to-night  they  drew  together  at  the  window,  whose 
top  reached  only  half-way  up  the  wall  and  whose  sill  was 
plumb  with  the  floor.  They  crouched  down  by  it  together, 
looking  cut  at  the  web  of  moonlight  and  fog  that  the  night 
had  spun  round  the  Bugshull  trees. 

"Well,  Robert?"  said  Clem  rather  diffidently.  He  hoped 
his  brother's  silence  was  not  going  to  spread  over  the  hour 
generally  devoted  to  confidences.  At  this  hour  Robert  would 
tell  him  all  sorts  of  things — strange  things,  wonderful  things, 
scaring  things,  beautiful  things,  bad  things. 

Robert  sighed,  and  stretched  out  his  arms,  tilting  his  head 
back  against  the  framework  of  the  window,  so  that  Clem  saw 
all  the  soft,  strong  muscles  of  his  neck. 

"Robert,  wot  maade  you  stand  up  lik  that  in  Church?" 

"That's  just  about  wot  queers  me." 

"Bob!" 

"Doan't  look  so  sorrowing  at  me,  young  'un.  I  tell  you  it 
aun't  my  fault.    I'm  queered  more'n  you." 

"But  wot  maade  you  stand  up?" 

His  brother  edged  closer  to  him  on  the  window  seat. 

"I'll  tell  you,  lad — but  it  queers  me.  Now  doan't  you  go 
telling  Faather." 

"I  woan't,  surelye." 

"Nor  Mother,  neither.     Promise  me  solemn." 

"I'm  solemn." 

"Right.  Well,  it  wur  middling  straange.  I  wur  listening 
to  the  sermon  and  I  heard  him  telling  us  to  come  to  the 
Lord.  And  I  thought  to  myself — 'that's  good  words.'  Then 
when  he  asked  us  to  testify,  I  no  more  thought  of  standing 
up  than  you  did.    But  all  of  a  suddent,  something  says  inside 


i6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

me:    'Bob  Fuller,  stand  up.'    And  up  I  jumped  as  if  I'd  bin 
shot,  and  then  I  felt  too  big  a  fool  to  sit  down  agaun." 

''But,  Bob,  maybe  it  wur  God  speaking  to  you." 

*'If  it  wur,  reckon  He's  played  me  a  trick,  fur  I  feel  no 
more  saaved  than  a  potatotrug." 

"Maybe  you  can  be  saaved  wudout  feeling  it." 

"Not  you!  You  feel  all  your  boans  praising  the  Lord. 
If  it  ud  bin  last  week  I'd  have  known  wot  to  think — sometimes, 
when  I'm  a  bit  on,  I  hear  voices  hollering  all  sorts  o'  things 
at  me,  some  of  'em  middling  pious  too.  But  to-night  I'm 
sober  as  a  pump.  I  tell  you,  young  'un,  it  queers  me.  And 
I  reckon  I  feel  a  fool  too.  To-morrow  all  the  plaace  ull 
be  laughing,  and  asking  me  how  I  lik  Salvation!" 

"Doan't  fret.  Bob.  Reckon  you  can  soon  show  'em  as  you 
aun't  saaved." 

"Reckon  I  can,  and  reckon  I  will.  I  tell  you  if  it  wur 
God  wot  spuck  to  me  last  night,  He's  played  me  a  blasted 
trick,  and  I'll  sarve  Him  out." 

"Taake  care  how  you  talk.    It  aun't  right  to  say  such  words.' ' 

"I  tell  you  they're  true.  God's  angry  wud  me  because  I 
lik  enjo3ang  myself  and  loving  girls  and  drinking  at  pubs  and 
doing  all  the  things  as  He  doan't  hold  with,  so  He's  a-done 
this  to  sarve  me  out.  Howsumdever,  I'll  show  Him  as  I  aun't 
beat  as  easy  as  that.  If  anyone  here  abouts  thinks  as  I'm 
saaved  he'll  soon  think  different,  or  else  he'll  think  as  a  child 
of  God  can  have  as  valiant  tough  a  time  as  any  ordinary 
sinner." 

Clem  looked  scared,  as  if  he  expected  the  skies,  or  at  least 
the  roof,  to  fall  on  such  blasphemy,  but  the  universe  and  Bod- 
ingmares  stood  equally  firm. 

"I'll  learn  'em,"  continued  Robert,  working  up  his  rage, 
"reckon  I'll  learn  foalkses  around  here  all  that  Robert  Fuller 
can  do  when  he's  saaved.  I'll  show  'em  some  tough  salvation! 
I'll  tell  you  wot  I'll  do — I'll  go  to  the  gipsies  and  I'll  have  that 
girl  Hannah  Iden.  I'd  never  touch  her  before,  but  now  I 
reckon  I  doan't  care  wot  I  do." 

"Oh,  doan't  go  after  Hannah,  Bob.    She's  a  tedious  lot  I've 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  17 

heard.  And  the  gipsy  boys  reckon  they'll  have  all  your  money 
off  you." 

"Not  they!  I  know  them  and  their  tricks — they're  silly 
swine.  But  I'll  have  Hannah,  fur  she's  a  valiant  girl,  and 
I'd  have  had  her  before  if  she  hadn't  bin  a  gipsy.  But  now 
I  doan't  care — it's  naun  to  me  if  I  shame  myself,  seeing  as 
God  has  shamed  me  before  everyone." 

'Taake  care,  Bob,  or  maybe  He'll  maake  a  bigger  fool  of 
you  yet." 

Bob  swore,  and  his  anger  showed  signs  of  diversion  towards 
Clem,  who  smelt  his  brother's  fist  within  an  inch  or  two  of 
his  face. 

"Git  to  your  bed  and  kip  your  mouth  shut,  or  reckon  I'll 
start  my  way  to  glory  by  breaking  your  boans." 

So  they  went  to  their  wide-set  beds,  and  the  shadows 
divided  them. 

§  5 

The  next  morning  broke  in  the  clearness  of  October  sun- 
shine. The  mists  had  sunk  into  the  earth  or  shredded  into  the 
sky,  and  the  distances  that  had  been  blurred  since  twilight 
were  now  almost  frostily  keen  of  outline  and  colour.  The  air 
was  thinly  sweet — scented  with  the  sodden  earth,  with  the 
moist,  golden  leaves,  with  the  straw  of  rick  and  barn-roof 
made  pungent  by  dew.  At  Bodingmares  there  was  a  sound 
of  singing,  Robert's  voice  raised  in  happy  unregeneration  as 
he  took  the  horses  to  the  pond: 

"As  I  was  sitting  by  the  fire 

Winking  my  eye  at  Reilly's  daughter  ,  .  ." 

Mary  in  the  kitchen  set  her  arms  akimbo  and  said  to  her 
stepmother: 

"Thur's  Robert  singing  his  ugly,  rude  songs  agaun,  and  fur 
wunst  I'm  thankful  to  hear  him." 

"Poor  lad,"  said  his  mother;  "reckon  as  he  wum't  himself 
last  night." 

Mary  sniffed. 


i8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"If  you  wur  to  ask  me  I'd  say  as  how  he'd  got  more  drink 
in  him  than  he'd  tell.  He'd  never  go  and  disgrace  us  all  lik 
that  wudout  summat  stronger  than  the  Gospel  inside  him. 
He's  a  larmentable,  drinking  feller  and  ull  come  to  no  good 
end." 

"And  whose  fault's  that,  I'd  lik  to  know?  From  a  child 
you've  all  bin  set  agaunst  him,  giving  him  a  bad  naum,  till 
reckon  one  day  you'll  maake  him  what  you  think  him." 

"He's  bin  bred  in  a  Christian  house,  and  shown  praaperly 
how  to  maake  himself  useful.  So  thur's  no  sense  in  blaming 
others  fur  his  ways.  Maybe  I  haven  l  alius  bin  as  soft  wud 
him  as  some,  but,  then,  I  never  wur  one  to  stand  a  bad  smell 
and  not  wrinkle  my  nose.  .  .  .  Thur's  the  kettle  boiling  and 
I've  never  hotted  the  teapot.  Carry  them  plaates  in,  Mother — • 
not  the  liddle  ones,  but  the  deep  ones  wud  the  flowers  on  'em." 

The  Fullers  had  no  servant  at  Bodingmares,  whether  indoors 
or  out.  Indoors  Mary  and  Mrs.  Fuller  did  the  work  between 
them,  out  of  doors  the  four  men  cared  for  the  yard  and  fields. 
The  farm  had  not  always  been  run  so  meanly.  Before  James 
Fuller's  time  there  had  been  one  or  two  hands  employed,  and 
at  the  corner  of  the  street-field  (as  the  field  next  the  lane 
was  called)  stood  a  tumble-down  old  cottage,  where  generations 
of  ploughmen  had  lived  till  now  when  it  was  let  for  two 
shillings  a  week  to  the  drover  at  Bantony.  James  did  not 
see  the  sense  of  employing  a  man  when  he  had  three  lads  of 
his  own.  He  refused  to  listen  to  Jim  when  he  urged  him 
that  if  only  they  had  more  help  the  farm  could  be  expanded 
in  various  directions  which  were  at  present  closed.  He  was 
not  an  enterprising  farmer;  for  one  thing  he  had  been  bred 
to  different  ways,  for  another  his  heart  was  set  on  that 
treasure  in  heaven,  which  though  it  might  be  safe  from  mioth 
and  rust,  yet  demanded  all  his  anxious  guard,  all  his  careful 
holding.  Jim  often  chafed  at  his  father's  methods,  and  spoke 
enviously  of  the  enterprise  of  other  farms,  of  their  stallions, 
their  catch-crops,  their  machinery,  but  James,  in  spite  of  his 
absorption  elsewhere,  would  not  let  another  man  be  master 
of  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness,  and  Bodingmares  jogged 
on  ingloricusly  from  day  to  day,  just  solvent,  just  in  repute. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  19 

This  meant  hard  work  for  everyone.  James  hated  to  see 
his  sons  idling,  and  Jim  was  ruthless  in  the  matter  of  doing 
all  they  could.  Robert  often  rebelled  and  went  after  his 
ovra  devices;  Clem  submitted  with  cheerful  docility,  and  milked 
and  groomed  and  fed  and  drove  and  dunged  and  dug  from  five 
in  the  morning  till  seven  or  eight  at  night  in  apparent  con- 
tentment. 

To-day  he  was  busy  carting  roots.  Robert  should  have  been 
helping  him,  but  he  had  gone  to  market — he  never  could 
resist  all  the  joy  and  jostle  of  market  day,  with  the  strings  of 
horses,  and  droves  of  sheep  and  cattle,  and  all  the  drinking 
of  jolly  farmers  at  the  George  and  the  Woolpack.  He  had 
gone  off  to  enjoy  himself  and  spend  his  money,  leaving  Clem 
busy  \A'ith  spade  and  aching  back  and  a  few  resentful  feelings. 
Clem  liked  market  day  too,  and  rather  wondered  how  it  felt 
to  get  drunk  ...  it  must  be  pleasant  or  people  would  not 
do  it  so  often. 

He  looked  up  and  saw  a  bright  patch  of  pink  on  the  rim 
of  the  field.  It  stood  out  against  the  hedge,  moving  towards 
him  do^\Ti  the  field,  and  suddenly  he  was  glad  that  Robert  was 
not  with  him.  He  put  up  his  hands  to  his  mouth  and  called 
softly: 

"Polly." 

The  answer  came,  a  faint  "Hallo!" 

He  left  his  spade  and  his  cart,  and  went  up  the  field  to  meet 
her,  his  feet  heavv  with  the  thick  clay  that  stuck  to  his  boots. 

"That  you,  Poll?" 

"Surelye." 

"I  wum't  expecting  you  so  soon  after  yesterday." 

"They've  all  gone  to  the  market,  them  at  hoame.  Let's 
go  to  the  market,  Clemmy." 

"Reckon  I  can't  leave  my  roots." 

"Thur's  a  show  wud  roundabouts,  and  swings,  and  a  shoot- 
ing gallery.    Why  woan't  you  come?" 

"I  wur  out  gadding  yesterday — all  the  afternoon.  Faather 
wur  larmentable  sorry  about  me  when  I  came  hoame." 

"So  wur  my  Dad.  Says  he'll  taake  a  stick  to  me  if  I  do  it 
aeaun." 


20  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Then  wot  d'you  want  to  go  to  the  fair  fur  to-day?" 

"Reckon  I  doan't  care  wot  becomes  of  me.  Reckon  it's 
all  one  to  me  wot  happens  so  long  as  I  enjoy  myself  a  bit 
fust." 

Clem  looked  at  her  little  sharp  sorrowful  face,  and  a  soft 
look  of  pity  came  into  his  eyes. 

"Come  up  and  sit  wud  me  at  the  top  of  the  field  and  talk 
to  me  whiles  I  work." 

"That'll  be  a  valiant  way  fur  me  to  spend  my  mamun. 
Reckon  I'll  git  some  other  boy  to  taake  me  since  you  woan't." 

Her  eyes  blazed  at  him,  but  her  lip  trembled  as  she  met 
his  deep,  troubled  stare.  She  suddenly  sprang  forward  and 
threw  her  arms  round  his  neck,  kissing  his  cheek. 

"Forgive  me,  Clemmy;   I  didn't  mean  it." 

He  returned  the  kiss. 

"Of  course  you  didn't,  Poll.  Reckon  you'd  never  go  wud 
them  other  boys.  And  I'll  tell  you — it's  a  promise — I'll  taake 
you  some  day.  The  swings  will  be  here  a  week,  and  Faather 
ull  give  me  five  shillun  on  Saturday,  so  we'll  have  a  valiant 
time." 

Polly  crimsoned  with  delight,  and  they  went  up  together  to 
the  top  of  the  field,  where  Clem  took  up  his  spade  again  and 
she  sat  down  on  the  sun-dried  clods  and  watched  him.  They 
did  not  talk  much,  for  he  was  working  hard,  and  she  was  con- 
templative, in  the  peace  that  often  came  to  her  when  he  was 
near.  She  sat  with  her  elbows  on  her  knees,  her  hands  sup- 
porting her  small,  elfish  face.  She  was  nearly  sixteen,  and 
scarcely  pretty,  with  her  large  mouth  and  narrow  eyes,  and 
her  hair  which  hung  in  long  hanks,  grooving  with  shadows 
her  cheeks  already  too  thin.  But  the  whole  face  was  alive, 
sharp  and  imaginative  as  the  faces  of  the  Rother  villagers  sel- 
dom are.  In  some  ways  she  seemed  older  than  her  years — 
her  voice  was  old;  in  others  she  seemed  much  younger,  and 
her  clothes  were  those  of  a  girl  of  twelve — a  short  pink  pina- 
fore over  a  still  shorter  stuff  skirt,  which  showed  graceful  legs 
in  ragged  stockings  and  hideous,  clumsy  boots. 

"Clem,  Betty  wur  at  me  agaun  this  mamun." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  21 

He  stood  leaning  on  his  spade,  his  Q^es  fixed  on  her  sadly, 
as  the  sweat  ran  down  his  arms. 

"Wot  about,  this  time?" 

"Oh,  she  says  I'm  dirty,  and  I  spannell  up  the  house — and 
I  should  ought  to  go  to  work  since  I'm  over  school  age.  Oh, 
Qem,  I'd  just  about  hate  to  be  a  sarvent." 

"And  I'd  hate  to  see  you  one — it  aun't  the  life  fur  you. 
Your  Dad  ud  never  send  you — it  ud  shaame  him." 

"Sometimes  I  think  he'd  sooner  be  shiiamed  than  kip  me 
araound.  You  see,  there's  naun  particular  to  do  in  the  house 
now  we've  got  Ellen.  If  Ellen  went  maybe  Betty  ud  maake 
me  help  her,  since  we'd  never  git  another  girl,  since  everyone 
knows  now  as  Dad  iiun't  married  to  Betty,  Ellen  ud  never 
have  come  to  us  if  she  hadn't  got  her  baby,  so  as  no  respect- 
able foalks  ud  taake  her." 

"She  aun't  lik  to  go  then,  I  reckon." 

"Not  if  Betty  kips  her  tongue  and  her  hands  off  her.  But 
the  temper  she  has,  that  Betty!  She  threw  a  boot  at  her  Tues- 
day, and  maybe  she  woan't  stand  much  more  of  it.  I'm  sure 
I  shouldn't,  even  wud  the  baby.  I  hope  she'll  stop,  though, 
fur  reckon  I'd  sooner  be  a  sarvent  in  a  stranger's  house  than 
a  sarvent  in  oum.  And,  Clem,  I  do  middling  love  Ellen's 
baby." 

"Do  you,  then?" 

"Oh,  she's  a  liddle  soft  thing  as  it's  joy  to  kiss.  Her  hands 
— you  shud  feel  them  hoalding  you!  Reckon  I'll  break  my 
heart  if  she  taakes  her  away." 

He  was  sitting  beside  her  now,  unfolding  a  checked  hand- 
kerchief on  his  knees,  and  carefully  taking  out  of  it  a  large 
hunk  of  thinly  buttered  bread.  He  broke  it  in  half  with  his 
dirty  fingers. 

"Have  a  bit  o' lunch?" 

"I  doan't  lik  to  taake  any  of  youm." 

"Why?     I'll  have  my  dinner  soon  as  I  git  in." 

She  hesitated  a  moment  longer,  then  a  new  impulse  seized 
her,  and  clasping  in  both  of  hers  the  hand  that  held  out  the 
food,  she  pulled  it  to  her,  dragging  his  arm  across  her  breast. 


22  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

She  was  struck  by  the  contrast  of  the  white  skin  of  the  under- 
arm with  the  hard  brown  skin  that  had  caught  the  sun  through- 
out the  summer.  A  blue  vein  in  the  midst  of  the  whiteness 
seemed  to  her  peculiarly  reiined  and  beautiful.  She  put  her 
lips  to  it,  and  they  both  laughed. 

"I  waonder  wot  your  faather  ud  say  if  he  wur  to  see  me 
setting  wud  you  here.  Reckon  he  doan't  lik  fur  you  to  be 
kipping  company  wud  me." 

Clem  laughed. 

''It  all  sounds  so  grand  and  growed  up — 'kipping  com- 
pany.' " 

"Well,  we  are  that,  aun't  we?" 

"Reckon  we  are — and  we'll  be  married  some  day,  when  I'm 
oald  enough  and  have  put  by  a  bit  o'  money." 

"And  you  woant  let  your  faather  maake  you  give  me  up?" 

"Not  I,  Poll!    Wot  d'you  think  of  me?" 

"No,  I  knew  as  you  wudn't;  only  sometimes,  Clem,  when  I 
think  wot  poor  shabby  trash  I  am,  and  coming  from  a  house 
where  there's  shaame  .  .  ." 

"Hold  your  tongue,"  he  said  almost  roughly,  and,  to  enforce 
his  words,  he  suddenly,  and  for  the  first  time,  pressed  his 
mouth  on  hers.  She  gave  a  little  recoil,  then  yielded,  her  arms 
twining  round  him  and  holding  him  close,  though  he  was  all 
hot  and  dirty  from  his  labour  and  smelt  of  earth  and  sweat. 


§  6 

Early  the  next  week  Clem  was  able  to  fulfil  his  promise  to 
take  Polly  to  the  swings.  Work  was  already  beginning  to 
slacken  for  the  winter,  and  the  dim  rose-coloured  evenings 
brought  men  home  from  the  fields  between  four  and  five. 
As  soon  as  he  was  free  that  Tuesday,  Clem  ran  upstairs  and 
cleaned  himself  and  put  on  his  Sunday  clothes,  and  went  to 
meet  Poll  at  the  end  of  the  drive,  for  it  would  never  do  if  his 
father  saw  them  start  out  together.  Polly  had  known  that 
her  boy  would  be  smart,  and  had  done  her  best  to  make  her- 
self presentable — in  which  she  had  had  a  certain  amount  of 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  23 

help  from  "that  Betty,"  who  was  sometimes  known  to  be 
sympathetic  where  boys  were  concerned.  So  Polly  wore  a  big, 
straw  hat  set  round  with  moon-daisies,  and  a  pair  of  fawn 
cotton  gloves  that  nearly  reached  the  bottom  of  her  slee^^es, 
vv'hile  round  her  neck  was  hung  a  diamond  heart  transfixed 
with  a  turquoise  arrow.  Her  feet  were  squeezed  tormentingly 
into  a  pair  of  Betty's  cloth-topped  boots,  and  altogether  she 
was  a  good  match  for  Clem,  with  his  hair  all  oiled  and  plastered 
out,  and  his  black  coat  and  high  white  collar,  above  which  his 
chin  twisted  and  craned  in  discomfort. 

She  took  his  arm,  and  they  set  out  in  their  pleasure  and 
constraint  to  where  the  flares  of  the  booths  had  already  caught 
the  darkening  sky.  A  red  glow  hung  over  the  festival,  rising 
from  the  midst  of  a  circle  of  tents  and  caravans,  which  huddled 
round  it,  mysterious  and  unilluminated.  In  the  middle  the 
merry-go-round  trundled  to  a  strident  tune;  the  swings  were 
just  behind  it,  and  all  round  were  the  stalls  of  sweets  and  rib- 
bons and  lace  collars  and  false  jewellery  and  flowery  china- 
ware.  It  was  one  of  those  innumerable  travelling  shows  which 
grind  and  rattle  through  the  lanes  behind  stinking  engines 
one  day  a  week,  hire  some  unvalued  field  or  pitch  on  the 
village  green,  display  their  goods  and  their  fun,  and  make 
a  whole  neighbourhood  happy  for  a  few  coppers  a  head. 

Clem  paid  two  pennies  at  the  entrance,  kept  by  an  imposing 
lady  in  diamond  ear-rings  and  a  fur  coat,  and  then  two 
pennies  more  for  their  ride  on  the  roundabout.  They  always 
had  just  one  ride  on  the  red  and  blue  spotted  horses,  but  their 
greatest  delight  was  in  the  swings.  It  was  a  wonderful  thing 
to  sit  in  a  swing-boat  together,  and  fly  up  into  the  darkness 
hanging  above  the  show,  and  then  rush  down  into  the  light 
again.  They  hardly  knew  which  they  liked  best — that  mys- 
terious ascension  towards  the  cold,  wonderful  things  above,  or 
that  swing  back  to  the  warm,  human,  noisy  things  below.  They 
had  to  swing  very  high  to  get  right  out  of  the  glare  and  to 
see  the  stars  hanging  there  big  and  untroubled  above  the 
misty  redness  of  the  show;  it  sometimes  took  Clem  five  min- 
utes to  work  the  swing  up  to  the  necessary  height,  and  Polly 
found  herself  biting  her  tongue  to  keep  down  her  screams  as 


24  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

all  the  lights  of  the  fair  swung  away  from  them,  and  the 
red  glow  nished  down,  and  they  flew  up  for  just  one  instant 
into  the  cold,  still  darkness,  which  seemed  to  stroke  their 
faces  like  a  wing,  .  .  .  Then  down  again!  The  sky  with 
its  myriad  stars  heeled  over  and  was  lost — the  red  ground 
roared  up  to  meet  them,  and  all  the  stalls  with  their  shud- 
dering candles;  it  seemed  as  if  they  would  strike  the  bot- 
tom, but  they  just  skimmed  instead,  their  shadows  running 
ahead  of  them  over  the  crimson  ground  .  .  .  and  then  up 
again,  with  breath  almost  gone  and  hearts  in  suspense,  seek- 
ing once  more  the  adventure  of  the  dark.  .  .  . 

You  had  ten  minutes  on  the  swings  for  twopence,  and 
Clem  had  counted  to  spend  a  shilling  in  this  way.  Eight- 
pence  would  buy  their  supper  in  gingerbread  and  apples,  he 
had  already  spent  fourpence,  so  exactly  sixpence  would  be 
left  to  buy  Polly  her  traditional  fairing.  For  though  Clem 
had  had  five  shillings  given  him  on  Saturday — as  a  sedative 
to  his  father's  conscience  for  making  him  do  a  man's  full  work 
seven  days  a  week — he  had  brought  only  half  a  crown  to  the 
show.  He  always  put  by  half  a  crown  a  week,  and  had  cal- 
culated that  he  would  have  saved  enough  to  get  married  by 
the  time  he  was  twenty-one.  The  trouble  was  that  he  did 
not  always  succeed  in  keeping  his  hoard  inviolate.  Bob  had  a 
great  deal  more  than  five  shillings  a  week — he  said  he'd  be 
hemmed  if  he'd  work  for  his  father  for  less  than  a  man's  full 
wages — but  he  had  an  expensive  life,  standing  drinks  all  round 
at  the  pubs,  and  taking  girls  to  the  pictures,  and  going  by  train 
to  distant  markets  and  football  matches,  so  that  he  was  some- 
times obliged  to  borrow  from  Clem,  not  always  the  whole  five 
shillings,  but  often  part  of  it. 

Clem  suddenly  caught  sight  of  Robert  on  a  downward 
sweep  of  the  swing.  He  saw  him  standing  in  the  glow  of  the 
houp-la  stall,  beside  a  shawled  figure  whom  he  did  not  recog- 
nize. He  had  expected  to  meet  his  brother.  Robert  had  been 
out  when  he  went  up  to  their  room  to  dress,  but  he  had  been 
to  the  show  nearly  every  evening  of  its  visit,  and  would  most 
likely  be  there  to-night.     He  craned  to  see  what  sort  of  girl 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  25 

Bob  had  got  this  time,  but  before  he  could  do  so  the  swing 
had  rushed  up  with  him  into  the  darkness,  and  when  it  came 
down  again  they  had  moved  on. 

But  when  the  shilling  was  spent,  and  Clem  and  Polly  stood 
rocking  and  rather  sea-sick  on  the  solid  ground,  Robert  and 
his  companion  came  once  more  into  view  round  the  corner 
of  the  shooting  gaJlery.  This  time  Clem  knew  her  at  once, 
and  made  a  face  of  disgust.  She  was  Hannah  Iden,  the 
gipsy;  after  all,  he  might  have  recognized  her  by  her  bright 
shawl.  None  of  the  girls  in  the  neighbourhood  wore  a  shawl; 
only  the  gipsies  did  so.  Above  her  shawl  was  tilted  her  crazy 
hat,  full  of  great  feathers,  and  her  eyes  looked  out  from  under 
it  black  and  smouldering,  and  her  red  mouth  laughed  in  her 
brown  face. 

Clem  was  shocked.  Never  before  had  his  brother  been  seen 
about  with  Hannah  Iden.  Local  convention  was  strong  on 
the  matter  of  the  gipsies.  Bob  had  now  and  then  gone  with 
a  low  girl,  but  never  with  a  girl  from  Egypt.  Clem  thought  he 
saw  judgment  written  on  every  face.  He  was  ashamed  for 
his  brother — who  was,  for  that  matter,  ashamed  of  himself. 
Clem  read  the  secret  of  his  swaggering  gait,  his  hands  thrust 
deep  in  his  breeches  pockets,  his  cap  pushed  back  from  the 
great  curl  on  his  forehead,  o  ,  . 

"Wot  wud  you  lik,  darling?"  he  said  to  Hannah  in  a  loud 
voice;  "I'll  buy  you  wotsumdever  you  please." 

"I'd  like  you  to  treat  me  as  a  young  gentlewoman,"  came  in 
Hannah's  soft,  humming  voice,  so  unlike  the  drawl  of  the 
Rother  villages,  "and  not  call  me  darling  without  acquain- 
tance." 

Young  Pepper  of  Weights,  who  stood  near,  burst  out  laugh- 
ing. 

"That's  praaper,"  he  said  to  Hugh  Willard  of  Boarsney; 
"that's  teaching  him  manners." 

Robert  turned  crimson,  and  the  way  he  looked  at  Hannah 
was  not  pretty. 

"Then  wot  am  I  to  call  you,  ma'am,  since  I've  the  honour 
of  taaking  out  an  Egyptian?" 


26  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"My  name  is  Hannah  Iden,  and  was  given  me  in  a  good  way 
in  Church.    So  you  can  call  me  by  it." 

Robert  made  her  a  low  bow — it  struck  Clem  that  he 
must  be  a  little  drunk.  His  brother  suddenly  caught  sight  of 
him,  and  noddeH  in  a  way  which  said  plainly,  "Doan't  you 
come  nigh  me,"  so  Clem  walked  off,  with  Polly  holding  sedate- 
ly by  his  arm. 

But  all  the  joy  of  the  show  was  spoiled — even  the  supper 
which  they  ate  standing  side  by  side  at  the  refreshment 
stall,  in  the  midst  of  a  great,  happy  sound  of  strong  teeth 
crunching  apples.  Clem  could  not  forget  P>.obert,  even  when 
he  did  not  see  him  swaggering  along  beside  gipsy  Hannah 
in  her  wicked,  outlandish  shawl  and  hat.  He  had  disgraced 
himself,  outlawed  himself  by  his  behaviour  to-night.  No  de- 
cent labourer — let  alone  a  yeom.an  farmer's  son — ever  went 
with  the  gipsies.  They  were  thieves,  they  were  furriners,  they 
sold  low  things  like  clothes-pegs  and  kettles  when  everyone 
knew  they  had  plenty  of  money;  they  poached  and  were  never 
caught,  they  stole  horses  and  could  never  be  brought  to  justice, 
they  had  cunning  hearts  and  dark  faces  and  ate  hedgehogs. 
.  .  .  Yah!  they  made  decent  folk  sick. 

Everywhere  he  went  the  little  brother  seemed  to  hear  echoes 
of  Robert's  shame:  "Thur  goes  Bob  Fuller — him  wot  got 
saaved  on  Thursday."  "He's  wusser  than  ever  now — he  never 
used  to  go  \vud  gipsy  trash  before."  "He's  a  dirty  dog! "  came 
harshly  from  a  young  farmer  at  Etchingham.  "I'm  hemmed  if 
I  ever  taake  another  pint  wud  Bob  Fuller." 

Clem  felt  utterly  miserable.  He  could  not  enjoy  the  show, 
even  for  Polly's  sake.  Once  in  his  desperation  he  thought  of 
trying  to  make  Robert  go  home  with  him,  but  he  knew  the 
folly  of  such  an  idea — Bob  had  drink  in  him  and  might  make 
a  scene.  So  they  wandered  forlornly  among  the  glittering 
stalls;  Polly  recognized  and  shared  her  boy's  depression,  and 
had  scarcely  the  heart  to  choose  a  sixpenny  bangle  richly  set 
with  rubies  and  emeralds.  She  was  pleased  enough  when  she 
woke  up  the  next  morning  with  it  under  her  pillow,  but  that 
night  she  shared  her  lover's  melancholy,  and  felt  a  little  of  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  27 

throbbing  shame  of  the  heart  against  which  her  hand  was 
pressed. 

§  7 

They  left  earlier  than  usual,  for  the  glory  was  departed  and 
they  were  tired.  About  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before  they  went, 
Robert  and  Hannah  disappeared,  and  Clem's  trouble  was  in- 
creased by  miserable  conjectures.  Had  Bob  gone  back  with 
her  to  Blindgrooms?  However,  when  in  the  slow,  cold  mid- 
night he  came  to  Bodingmares,  having  seen  Polly  to  the  bot- 
tom of  Orznash  drive,  he  found  his  brother  lying  fully  dressed 
and  face  downwards  on  the  bed.  He  did  not  move  when  Clem 
came  in,  and  for  a  moment  the  boy  stood  looking  helplessly 
at  him,  wondering  whether  he  was  drunk  or  asleep.  At  last 
he  said: 

"Can  I  do  anything  fur  you.  Bob?" 

There  was  a  heave  of  the  strong  shoulders,  and  Clem  drew 
back,  when  Robert's  voice  came  suddenly  and  huskily  out  of 
the  pillow: 

"You  might  taake  off  my  boots." 

Clem  had  performed  this  office  before,  and  did  so  now, 
fumbling  in  the  darkness  with  the  laces  and  legging-straps. 

"Robert,  you  shudn't  ought  to  have  laid  down  wud  your 
boots  on  the  counterpane.  Reckon  you've  spannelled  things 
up  unaccountable." 

"Wot's  that  to  you?    Hoald  your  tongue!" 

Clem  said  no  more,  merely  tugged  and  hauled  till  the 
boots  were  off,  and  then  brought  his  brother  some  water.  Bob 
wetted  his  head  and  drank  the  pitcher  dry,  after  which  he 
felt  better  and  rolled  over  on  his  back. 

"Clem,  aun't  she  justabout  beautiful?" 

"Wlio?  Hannah  Iden?  I  reckon  she's  got  a  fiiace  lik  the 
bad  girl  on  the  Pictures." 

•'You  saw  us,  didn't  you?" 

"Surelye." 

"Clem,  she's  a  bitch." 

"No  need  to  tell  anyone  that." 


28  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"But,  listen  here,"  and  Robert  raised  himself  excitedly  on 
his  elbow.    "Wot  d'you  think,  kid?    She  woan't  have  me." 

"Not  have  you?"  Incredulity,  indignation  and  relief  strug- 
gled together  in  Clem's  voice. 

"No — that  she  woan't.  Spuck  me  short  'cos  I  called  her 
'darling,'  maade  me  taake  her  hoame  at  ten  o'clock,  and  then 
wouldn't  so  much  as  give  me  a  kiss  at  the  door.  She's  a 
bitch." 

"Maybe  she's  got  another  boy." 

"Wot's  it  to  me  if  she's  got  a  dozen?  I  said  I'd  have  her, 
and  have  her  I  will." 

"But  since  she  woan't  have  you,  .  .  ." 

"She's  got  to  have  me.    Wot's  she  that  she  should  choose?" 

"Bob,  can't  you  let  her  aloan'  now?  Reckon  you've  shown 
everyone  as  you  aun't  saaved." 

"But  I  aun't  shown  myself." 

"Wot  d'you  mean?" 

"I  doan't  mean  naun.  But  if  I  can't  have  Hannah  ...  I 
tell  you,  youngster,  I've  a  tar'ble  sort  er  feeling  as  by  standing 
up  that  time  I've  gone  and  put  myself  among  the  Elect  wudout 
knowing  it  and  I've  got  to  be  saaved  whether  I  lik  it  or  not. 
And  then  I  say  as  my  only  chanst  is  to  go  straight  to  the 
devil,  and  reckon  Hannah  Iden  ud  show  me  the  way  better'n 
most." 

"But,  Bob,  you  wudn't  lik  to  go  to  hell?" 

"I  dunno.  Wot  do  I  know  about  hell?  All  I  know  is  that 
it's  just  about  scaring  to  have  a  trick  played  on  you  lik  that. 
Besides,  I  want  her,  Clem.  She's  lovely  .  .  .  her  mouth  makes 
my  mouth  ache  .  .  .  she  smells  of  grass  .  .  .  and  her  eyes  in 
the  shadder — they  maake  me  want  to  drownd  myself.  I  wish 
her  eyes  wur  water  and  I  could  drownd  myself  in  'em." 

He  was  sitting  up  on  the  bed,  and  looked  sick  and  excited. 

"Doan't  'ee  vrother,"  said  Clem  soothingly;  "she  aun't  worth 
your  thoughts — and  reckon  you  doan't  look  saaved  ever  such 
a  liddle  bit.  Think  of  something  nice.  I  heard  Mary  say  as 
she  wur  maaking  a  blackberry  puddin'  to-morrow." 

"I  guess  I'll  be  sick  to-morrow.    Not  that  I've  took  much. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  29 

but  I  feel  unaccountable  bad.    Oh,  Clem,  I  wish  as  I'd  never 
been  bornl" 

§  8 

The  next  day  Robert  was,  as  usual  after  such  outbursts, 
inclined  to  be  sulky.  But  in  course  of  time  his  spirits  revived, 
and  Clem's  mounted  with  them  till  they  reached  at  last  the 
level  of  contentment  which  was  their  natural  state.  Polly 
Ebony,  his  mother  and  Bob,  the  succession  of  October  days 
and  nights,  his  work,  and  what  there  was  for  dinner,  became 
once  more  the  happy  realities  of  his  life. 

Even  Robert's  evening  confidences  ceased  to  obtrude  dark 
things.  It  was  not  till  later  that  he  came  to  realize  that  this 
was  not  normal,  and  to  suspect  that  these  confidences  were  no 
longer  real  confidences,  but  were  tainted  with  the  reserve  that 
seemed  to  have  passed  from  Bob's  general  conversation.  Also, 
in  time,  he  began  to  notice  how  often  he  came  up  to  bed  to 
find  his  brother  apparently  asleep,  and  very  nearly  as  often 
Robert  was  out  and  did  not  come  in  till  Clem  himself  was 
sleeping. 

Once  more  his  mind  was  shaken  out  of  the  joyful  common- 
places in  which  it  lived,  and  began  to  ask  questions  which  he 
found  at  last  on  his  tongue:  "Whur's  Hannah  Iden?"  .  .  . 
"Have  you  see  Hannah  Iden  agaun?"  .  .  .  "Has  she  still  naun 
to  say  to  you?"  Once  Bob  answered  that  Hannah  had  gone  off 
basket-selling  into  Kent;  another  time  he  told  Clem  to  hold 
his  tongue.  Both  were  bad  answers,  since  one  showed  a  sus- 
picious knowledge  of  her  doings,  and  the  other  a  suspicious  re- 
luctance to  speak  of  them.  But  though  Clem  asked  no  more 
questions  out  loud,  he  could  not  stop  asking  them  in  his 
thoughts.  For  it  was  queer  to  have  Robert  silent  with  him 
like  this.  Robert  had  told  him  all  about  his  other  girls. 
Clem  loved  hearing  about  Robert's  girls.  But  now  he  scarcely 
ever  opened  his  mouth — you  would  really  think  he  hadn't  got 
a  girl ;  though  that,  of  course,  was  impossible. 

The  farm  was  still  slowly  settling  down  into  its  winter  quiet 
— it  was  like  some  old   thing   falling   asleep.     The   autumn 


30  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

ploughs  dragged  over  the  brown,  ribbed  fields,  while  yellow  rags 
of  leaves  fluttered  on  the  hedges  and  on  the  trees  of  Bugshull 
Wood,  The  Rother  mists  rose  very  high  at  night,  right  up 
to  the  gable  windows  of  the  farm,  and  all  the  valley  of  the 
river,  stretching  away  to  the  north,  was  full  of  mist  for  half 
the  day.  The  mist  seemed  to  penetrate  everything:  it  covered 
the  grass  with  white,  half-frozen  pearls;  it  draggled  the  leaves 
till  they  were  limp;  it  made  the  earth  soggy,  so  that  there  was 
a  poach  of  mud  and  yellow  water  at  every  gate. 

Clem  found  it  very  cold  rising  in  the  dark,  muffled  morn- 
ings and  going  out  with  his  lantern  to  the  milking.  But  the 
cows'  udders  were  warm,  and  their  sweet-smelling  flanks,  in 
which  he  could  hide  his  cold  nose — and  breakfast  was  good, 
with  his  big  plate  of  porridge — and  at  ploughing  he'd  sweat 
nicely.  .  .  .  He  liked  the  autumn  work,  with  its  care  of  the 
ewes,  which  would  have  lambs  before  long;  and  he  was  proud 
of  having  saved  a  heavy  field  of  roots  from  the  damp.  His 
only  trouble,  and  it  was  serious  enough,  was  that  the  shorten- 
ing days  did  not  allow  him  to  see  much  of  Polly  Ebony.  His 
father  did  not  like  him  to  bring  her  to  the  house,  and  her 
father  would  not  have  him  at  Orznash — and  the  lanes  at  night 
were  cold,  even  for  lovers. 

Sometimes  she  would  come  and  stand  for  a  minute  or  two 
beside  him  at  his  work,  blowing  on  her  fingers,  or  stamping 
her  sodden,  mud-caked  boots.  But  she  could  no  longer  sit 
and  watch  him  while  he  worked;  and  though  in  his  free  time 
they  often  found  a  barn  full  of  straw  or  a  warm  comer  among 
the  stacks,  they  both  regretted  the  summer  days,  with  the 
streamside  rambles  and  the  sanctuaries  of  shade  which  the 
great  woods  gave  them  both  from  prying  and  from  heat. 

Clem  wished  he  could  have  persuaded  his  father  to  approve 
of  Polly  and  let  her  come  to  the  house,  for  he  knew  that  his 
mother  liked  her,  and  they  could  have  sat  together  in  the  warm, 
red  kitchen,  so  peaceful  of  an  afternoon,  and  his  mother  would 
have  given  them  cakes,  hot  out  of  the  oven.  But  though  James 
did  not  actually  forbid  his  son  to  associate  with  Polly  Ebony 
outside  the  farm,  he  would  not  allow  her  to  cross  its  respectable 
threshold,  because  of  the  "goings  on"  at  Orznash.    To  have 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  31 

suffered  her  would  have  been  in  some  manner  to  countenance 
sin.  She  was  part  of  the  shame  of  Orznash,  where  the  farmer 
lived  with  a  wom.an  who  was  not  his  wife.  In  this  attitude 
James  was  not  singular — his  neighbours  would  have  done  the 
same;  and  a  sense  of  injury  and  injustice  made  Tom  Ebony- 
retaliate  with  an  equally  strict  and  far  more  wide  exclusion, 
since  he  shut  out  all  those  who  would  have  shut  him  out,  and 
Clem,  in  other  respects  a  desirable  match  for  Polly,  was  for- 
bidden to  enter  her  home  just  as  strictly  as  she  was  forbidden 
to  enter  his. 

This  state  of  affairs  made  him  all  the  more  anxious  for  their 
marriage,  but  he  failed  to  see  how  it  could  take  place  for  many 
years  yet — partly  on  account  of  parental  opposition,  which  he 
believed  could  not  be  successfully  withstood  till  he  was  twen- 
ty-one, partly  on  account  of  money  difficulties.  He  had  now 
left  school  four  years,  and  had  saved  about  twenty  pounds.  In 
four  years  more,  at  the  same  rate,  he  would  have  saved  another 
twenty ;  but  he  hoped  that  his  father  would  soon  see  fit  to  raise 
his  wages,  since  he  was  really  no  longer  a  boy — he  had  asked 
him  once  already,  but  James  had  sternly  bidden  him  be  con- 
tented with  Eis  lot.  It  is  true  that  he  could  have  taken  him- 
self off  and  found  work  on  some  other  farm,  but  then  he 
would  have  had  to  pay  his  own  board  and  keep,  so  that  the 
advantage  gained  would  not  be  substantial  enough  to  make 
up  for  the  breach  with  his  family  and  the  loss  of  any 
chance  of  concessions  from  his  father.  Also  he  would  probably 
fail  to  get  employment  anywhere  in  the  neighbourhood,  where 
James,  if  not  liked,  was  considered  and  respected,  and  would 
have  to  endure  separation  from  Polly  and  the  prospect  of  her 
being  left  without  his  comfort  and  protection.  So  he  plodded 
on,  doing  all  he  could,  and  hoping  almost  more  than  he 
could. 

Then  one  day,  towards  the  end  of  the  month,  Robert  sud- 
denly asked  him  for  the  loan  of  a  couple  of  pounds.  It  was 
a  shock.  Robert  had  never  borrowed  more  than  shillings 
before — after  all,  the  dissipations  of  village  life  are  generally 
matters  of  pence.  But  here  he  was  asking  for  two  pounds,  and 
asking  as  if  he  expected  to  get  it.    Hitherto  Clem  had  never 


32  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

made  any  difficulty — Bob's  fingers  had  always  been  free  of 
his  treasure.  It  had  never  struck  him  that  it  was  a  shame 
that,  with  fifteen  shillings  a  week  and  no  marriage  to  save 
lip  for,  Bob  should  take  the  fruits  of  his  young  brother's  sacri- 
fices— that,  on  the  contrary,  he  might  have  helped  him  out  of 
his  own  abundance.  He  had  always  excused  his  brother  to  his 
own  qualms,  stressing  the  demands  of  that  glorious  life  which 
he  was  na'ively  proud  that  Bob  should  lead,  though  he  never 
had  any  temptation  to  lead  it  himself.  Robert,  in  his  check 
breeches  and  leather  gaiters  and  rakish  cap,  driving  his  gig, 
or  drinking  at  a  pub,  or  twirling  his  little  clipped  moustache 
at  some  girl  in  a  street  window,  was  a  Man.  Of  course  he 
wanted  money,  and  it  was  only  right  and  natural  that  he  should 
go  in  his  embarrassments  to  his  brother  Clem,  who  was  not 
a  Man,  and  would  have  had  no  use  for  his  money  had  he  not 
been  rashly  contemplating  marriage.  .  .  .  But  to-day  he  sud- 
denly felt  moved  with  anger  against  Robert;  he  suddenly  saw 
the  cruelty  as  well  as  the  injustice  of  his  demands.  Two 
pounds — a  four  months'  saving — it  wasn't  fair.  .  .  . 

"But  I'm  not  asking  you  to  give  it  to  me,"  said  Bob  when 
he  had  recovered  from  the  shock  of  a  scowl  and  a  short  answer; 
"I'm  only  asking  you  to  lend  it." 

"Wot  d'you  want  it  fur?" 

"That  aun't  your  concern." 

"It  is  my  concern,  since  it's  my  money." 

Robert  was  positively  startled  into  an  explanation. 

"I  lost  more'n  that  to  Darius  Ripley  at  Catsfield  raaces." 

"Raaces — you  dudn't  use  to  go  to  raaces." 

"Well,  reckon  I've  bin  now." 

"Wud  the  gipsies!" 

"Wud  Darius  and  Ambrose." 

He  stood  glaring  at  his  brother,  his  angry  blue  eyes  meet- 
ing defensively  the  stare  of  Clem's  round  golden  ones. 

"Doan't  git  thick  wud  them  gipsies,  Bob." 

"I'll  git  thick  wud  whom  I  please." 

"Then  doan't  come  asking  me  fur  money." 

Robert  bit  his  lip. 

"Reckon  you're  a  tarble  chap,  Clem — you've  chaanged  un- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  33 

accountable — ordering  me  about  and  grudging  me  money. 
You  never  used  to  grudge  me." 

"I  doan't  grudge  you  naun." 

*'Yes,  you  do.  You've  got  a  dunnamany  pounds  in  thai  box 
of  youm,  and  yit  you  woan't  let  me  have  as  much  as  two — 
only  for  a  week.    I'll  pay  you  back — honest  I  will." 

Robert  had  not  always  been  immaculate  in  the  matter  of 
repayment. 

"You  git  fifteen  shillun  a  week  of  your  own,  and  it  aun't 
fair  as  you  shud  come  to  me  and  taake  the  money  as  I've  put  by 
to  git  married,  and  spend  it  on  a  gipsy  baggage." 

"\Mio  says  I  spend  it  on  a  gipsy  baggage?  How  dare  you 
say  it?    I  tell  you  I  lost  it  to  Darius  Ripley  at  the  raaces." 

"You  wudn't  go  with  Darius  if  you  wurn't  after  Hannah." 

Robert  flushed,  and  his  fists  clenched  at  his  sides. 

"I  aun't  so  much  as  seen  Hannah  fur  a  week — she's  over 
at  the  Fivewatering  picking  oziers." 

"Bob,  you  doan't  tell  me  as  you  aun't  doing  it  all  on  account 
of  her.  You  dudn't  use  to  go  wud  the  gipsies,  you  dudn't  use 
to  go  to  raaces — and  now  you  do  both,  surelye.  Wot  am  I  to 
think?" 

His  anger  was  weakening  and  the  tears  came  into  his  eyes. 

"Doan't  think  no  harm  of  me,  Clem — but  let  me  have  that 
two  paound.     I'll  pay  you  back  in  a  week — honest — I  swear." 

"How  are  you  going  to  pay  me  back?" 

"Thur's  raaces  at  Plumpton  on  Friday,  and  I  know  .  .  . 
well,  never  mind  wot  I  know — but  I  tell  you  as  it's  praaperly 
sjiafe.  I'd  never  taake  all  that  amount  of  money  from  you, 
kid,  if  I  couldn't  pay  it." 

Clem  was  relenting — he  could  not  withstand  the  pleading 
of  Bob's  eyes,  that  look  as  of  a  hungry  dog  which  was  hidden 
under  all  their  cunning  and  guilt. 

"Doan't  think  as  I  grudge  you  aught.  Bob — it's  only — it's 
only  as  I  do  so  unaccountable  want  to  git  married." 

"Of  course  you  do,  young  un,  and  I  tell  you  as  you  shall — 
soon.  Reckon  I'll  help  you  after  this — I'll  see  if  I  can't  put  a 
bit  by  fur  you;  and  I  tell  you  I've  had  a  tip  fur  Plumpton 
as'll " 


34  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Oh,  Robert,  fur  marcy's  saake  doan't  put  any  money  fur 
me  on  a  horse.  It'll  be  lost  fur  certain  sure  .  .  .  and  the 
railway  fare  to  Plumpton's  something  tedious." 

"Doan't  vrother — I'll  git  back  my  fare  and  a  bit  more  too. 
If  only  you'll  stand  by  me  now.  .  .  ." 

His  case  was  won,  and  Clem,  with  a  sigh  which  he  tried  in 
vain  to  suppress,  unlocked  his  hoard,  and  counted  two  pounds 
in  silver  and  copper  into  Robert's  hand.  As  he  counted  out 
the  last  sixpence  he  suddenly  lifted  his  eyes  and  looked  straight 
and  pleadingly  at  his  brother. 

"Bob,  doan't  kip  things  hid  from  me.  .  .  .  Woan't  you  tell 
me  about  Hannah — after  this?" 

"Hoald  your  tongue!" 

Robert's  voice  came  angrily,  as  his  hand  closed  on  the 
money  and  plunged  it  with  a  jingle  into  his  pocket. 

§9 

He  paid  back  Clem  one  pound  five  at  the  end  of  the  week, 
apologizing  shamefacedly  for  having  no  more;  but  his  luck, 
though  good,  had  not  been  so  good  as  he  had  hoped.  He 
promised  the  rest  in  a  day  or  two — there  were  raaces  at  Ling- 
field.  .  .  . 

Clem,  whose  sense  of  injury  had  long  ago  given  place  to 
shame  for  having  grudged  him  anything,  gratefully  reassured 
him  of  his  patience,  and  felt  thankful  and  undeserving.  He 
was  glad  to  have  such  a  lot  as  twenty-five  shillings  back  so 
soon,  and  accused  himself  of  having  misjudged  Robert,  till 
one  day  he  overheard  Pont  of  Udiam  say  in  the  village: 

"Reckon  as  Bob  Fuller's  through  wud  all  that  money  he  got 
at  Plumpton." 

"He  can't  be,"  said  Willard  of  Boarsney.  "Reckon  he  maade 
more'n  five  paound  out  of  Market  Garden  and  that  selling- 
steeplechase  outsider." 

The  words  came  to  Clem  passing  by  on  the  road,  and  they 
went  into  his  heart  with  a  sick  stab.  But  it  couldn't  be  true — 
it  was  only  talk.  He  was  treacherous  even  to  think  of  it.  If 
Robert  had  come  back  five  pounds  the  richer  from  Plumpton, 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  35 

he  would  certainly  have  repaid  his  whole  debt.  But  the  words 
thus  blown  to  him  on  the  highway  irritated  his  heart  like 
dust.  .  .  .  After  all,  men  like  Willard  and  Pont  were  more 
likely  than  he  to  know  the  extent  of  Robert's  poverty  or  wealth 
— and  he  knew  that  Willard  had  been  to  the  races.  .  .  . 

The  next  day  he  was  in  the  post  office,  buying  a  stamp  for  a 
letter  to  Polly,  when  Stan  Shovell  came  in  for  a  postal  order. 
He  nodded  to  Clem,  and  they  exchanged  remarks  about  the 
weather  and  ewes  and  roots,  and  then,  just  as  young  Fuller 
was  going  out,  Shovell  asked  him  if  Bob  would  be  at  Ling- 
field  for  the  races. 

*'I  reckon  so." 

"I  waonder  if  he'll  have  as  stout  luck  as  he  had  at  Plump- 
ton." 

"Did  he  have  stout  luck  at  Plumpton?" 

"Reckon  he  did.  He  put  his  money  on  that  hemmed  out- 
sider what  won  the  selling  plaate.  A  tip  the  gipsies  guv 
him,  I  calculate." 

"He  never  toald  me  naun." 

"Ha!  ha!  He's  got  some  know!  And  all  the  money's 
a-gone  by  this  time,  I'm  certain  sure.  Huwsumdever,  I'm  sorry 
as  he  dudn't  tell  you;  I'd  a  feeling  as  maybe  you  cud  give  me 
Bob's  fancy  fur  the  Lingfield  Cup." 

Clem  shook  his  head. 

"Oh,  he's  close,  is  our  Robert — he  knows  how  to  hoald  his 
tongue.  But  I  thought  maybe  he'd  guv  you  a  tip,  being  his 
brother.  He  gits  his  tips  from  the  gipsies,  I  reckon;  and 
though  a  gipsy's  a  louse,  he  knows  an  unaccountable  lot  about 
horses  and  raacing." 

Clem  went  out,  feeling  troubled  and  heartsick.  So  it  was 
true  that  Robert  could  have  paid  back  the  whole  two  pounds. 
He  had  lied  to  his  brother,  he  had  cheated  him.  The  angry, 
shameful  crimson  gathered  on  Clem's  cheeks.  He  felt  outraged 
and  disappointed,  not  only  because  of  the  money,  but  because 
of  Pvobert's  reticence,  the  arch-secrecy  which  had  enabled  him 
to  win  and  spend  five  pounds  without  his  brother  knowing  it. 
Why  had  he  never  told  Clem  of  his  luck?  Because  he  wanted 
to  keep  four  pounds  out  of  the  five?     It  could  not  have  been 


36  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

only  that.  And  why  did  he  want  to  keep  so  much? — spend  it, 
rather,  since  all  the  village  was  agreed  that  he  had  nothing 
left.  It  must  be  Hannah  Iden,  that  outlandish  Egyptian. 
She  had  power  to  tie  Bob's  tongue  which  had  wagged  so 
roguishly  about  his  other  girls,  she  had  power  to  extort  pounds 
where  her  predecessors  had  had  to  be  content  with  shillings. 
Robert  was  mad  for  her,  and  he  was  buying  her;  he  was  buying 
her  with  pounds  and  with  the  fellowship  of  her  low  relations, 
all  the  Ripleys  and  Rylys  and  Bosvilles  and  Hearnes,  that 
poaching,  thieving,  welshing  lot  that  hung  round  Blindgrooms. 
.  .  .  Clem  hated  her,  because  she  was  making  Bob  miserable 
and  because  she  would  one  day  (he  knew  instinctively)  make 
him  happy,  when  he  had  paid  her  price. 

For  the  length  of  his  walk  home  he  thought  of  telling  his 
brother  what  he  knew,  and  pleading  with  him  at  least  for  open 
treatment.  But  by  the  time  he  saw  Robert  he  had  decided  to 
hold  his  tongue.  Bob  would  not  bear  remonstrance — he  was 
crabbed — and  after  his  last  explosion  of  wrath  Clem  dared 
not  speak  again  of  Hannah  Iden.  He  must  wait  for  a  while, 
and  see  what  would  come  of  Lingfield  races. 

Nothing  came  but  silence.  Bob  did  not  pay  the  fifteen  shill-* 
ings  he  still  owed,  or  even  speak  of  them.  Perhaps  he  had  for- 
gotten his  debt,  but  that  was  hardly  likely  with  such  an  un- 
precedented sum.  It  was  more  probable  either  that  he  had  had 
bad  luck  or  that  his  winnings  had  been  spent  on  Hannah. 
Clem  was  beginning  tragically  to  acquiesce  in  the  reserve  be- 
tween them.  Their  talk  was  now  all  of  trivial,  outside  things. 
When  they  were  alone  together  they  talked  of  crops  and  stock 
and  fairs  and  food,  and  such  things  as  they  talked  of  to  Cox 
of  Haiselman's  or  Dunk  of  Shoyswell  or  Pont  of  Udiam,  or 
anyone  else  who  didn't  matter. 

Early  in  November  Mus'  Fuller  fell  ill.  At  first  it  seemed  to 
be  only  a  cold;  he  sat  shivering  over  the  fire,  and  drank  a 
great  many  cups  of  hot  tea.  But  suddenly  a  fierce  pain  took 
hold  of  his  side  and  his  breath  became  sharp  and  noisy.    It 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  37 

struck  the  family  that  here  was  a  real  illness,  and  that  they 
had  better  send  for  a  doctor. 

The  doctor  came  and  looked  grave,  but  he  said,  "He'll  pull 
through  .  .  .  he'll  pull  through."  He  said  it  for  three  days, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  Mus'  Fuller  was  dead.  The 
doctor  seemed  to  think  that  he  ought  not  to  have  died,  that 
he  might  have  lived  if  he  had  not  suddenly  tired  of  his  fight 
for  life  and  wanted  nothing  but  rest. 

Clem  helped  to  nurse  his  father.  A  streak  of  capable  gen- 
tleness made  him  useful  at  the  bedside,  while  Robert  sulked 
miserably  outside  the  door,  and  Jim  found  practical  distrac- 
tion in  hard  work.  He  could  not  help  being  a  little  surprised 
at  the  small  interest  Mus'  Fuller  took  in  spiritual  matters,  now 
at  the  verjT^  time  they  would  be  expected  to  concern  him  most. 
The  years  of  his  health  had  been  spent  in  brooding  on  heavenly 
things,  but  from  tlie  moment  his  last  illness  began  his  mind 
seemed  to  concentrate  on  the  small  affairs  of  his  sick-bed.  His 
fight  for  life  was  entirely  a  matter  of  dose  and  diet,  and  his 
final  surrender  was  not  to  the  Everlasting  Arms,  but  to  his 
own  fatigue.  Clem  had  not  expected  this;  he  was  so  used  to 
his  father's  religion  hanging  like  a  cloud  over  his  most  earthly 
concerns  that  he  would  not  have  been  surprised  if  the  Four 
Last  Things  themselves  had  stood  at  the  four  posts  of  his 
death-bed.  Now  and  then  he  read  the  Bible  to  him,  but  the 
sick  man  would  constantly  break  in  with,  "Has  the  time  gone 
by  fur  my  medicine  yit,  Clem?"  or  "Reckon  there's  an  un- 
accountable draught  from  that  winder,"  or  "My  poultice  is 
turning  coald."  He  did  not  even  think  of  sending  for  the  min- 
ister, and  his  last  words  were  about  a  wagon  whip  he  had  left 
behind  on  a  visit  to  Mountpumps. 

Clem  shed  many  tears  for  his  father,  but  his  grief  was  noth- 
ing to  Robert's.  For  a  day  or  two  Robert  would  not  eat  and 
would  scarcely  speak.  He  cried  a  great  deal  and  accused  the 
others  of  being  unfeeling  because  they  were  able  to  live  their 
daily  lives.  He  said  that  Jim  was  glad  'his  father  was  dead 
because  he  could  now  do  as  he  wanted  with  the  farm.  Con- 
sidering the  way  Robert  had  treated  Mus'  Fuller  during  his 
lifetime,  it  was  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  now  found 


38  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

his  family  more  resentful  than  sympathetic.  "I  always  knew 
as  Bob  wur  low,"  said  Jim  one  day,  "but  it  aun  t  till  now 
I've  larned  he's  a  hypocrite."  c    ,  a     vtc. 

The  funeral  came,  and  Robert  was  a  little  comforted.    He 
found  a  certain  relief  in  driving  behind  the  hearse  m  a  new 
suit  of  blacks.    His  attitude  at  the  graveside  was  alniost  child- 
ishly solemn;  he  knelt  and  prayed  over  his  folded  hands.    A 
large   company   watched  him,   half   contemptuously,    for  all 
knew  how  he  had  behaved  during  his  father's  life-farmers 
who  had  come  from  many  miles  round  to  do  honour  to  a  man 
whom  no  one  had  liked.    There  was  Cox  of  Haiselman  s   and 
Pepper  of  Weights,  and  Bream  of     Little  Moat,  and  Dunk 
of   Shoyswell,   and  Willard  of   Boarsney.     No  wonder  that 
Mary  Fuller  could  hardly  fix  her  mind  on  the  prayers,  for 
thinkin-  of  the  funeral  tea  awaiting  the  company  at  home,  and 
now  of  necessity  in  charge  of  a  hired  girl-"and  everyone 
knows  as  they  aun't  to  be  trusted." 

Clem  did  not  find  the  same  comfort  as  Robert  in  his  father  s 
obsequies.     He  was  struck  by  the  chill  of  that  black  proces- 
sion-the  hearse  with  its  lumbering  horses,  and  the  mourning 
coaches  with  horses  gradually  lightening  from  black,  through 
brown,  to  the  last  bay  pair,  which  was  also  the  last  pair  at  wed- 
dings.    Even  the  wreaths  of  white  flowers,  with  all  the  in- 
scriptions that  had  been  written  and  read  so  P^^^f.^y- ^ith 
deepest  sympathy  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pont  and  httle  Reg, 
^In  memory  of  an  old  friend,  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Tom  Bream,' 
"From  all  at  Little  London,"  "In  everlasting  remembrance  of 
our  Dear  Father,  from  Mary,  James,  Robert  and  Clement. 
Not  lost   but  gone  before"— even  these  now  struck  him^  as  a 
little  repulsive,  with  their  miasma  of  white  smell  and  the  brown) 
smirching  of  petal-edges.  .    .t,^ 

When  his  family  stood  round  the  grave,  their  backs  to  the 

Martinmas  sunshine  and  the  white  ^^f^^^^.^^V'ttr^r.^^^^^ 
it  on  a  sea  of  shallow  blue,  they  seemed  to  him  almost  strangeis, 
as  unreal  as  the  long  black  shadows  that  lay  on  the  grass 
before  them.  Mary  looked  strange  and  stout,  and  Jim  looked 
strange  and  worn,  and  Robert  looked  strange  and  childish, 
and  his  mother  looked  strange  and  comely,  with  a  queer  youth- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  39 

ful  freshness  in  her  eyes  and  skin,  and  at  the  corners  of  her 
lips.  .  .  .  Even  he  himself  seemed  strange  to  himself,  with 
the  new  bowler  under  his  arm,  and  on  one  broad  red  hand 
the  black  kid  glove  which  was  the  sole  survivor  of  the  pair 
he  had  spent  half  an  hour  trying  to  force  on  after  dinner. 

One  joy  of  all  this  strangeness  was  that  before  the  funeral 
was  over  it  had  extended  to  the  central  piece  of  realism.  That 
dead  man  in  his  coffin  became  a  stranger  too ;  he  was  no  longer 
Mus'  Fuller  of  Bodingmares,  Clem's  father,  human  and  loved 
and  pitied,  who  had  lived  in  futility  and  grace  and  died  in 
pair>.  He  was  just  the  ballast  of  that  shiny  wooden  box, 
buried  in  the  earth,  with  wilting  flowers  to  hide  the  scar.  .  .  . 
He  had  no  more  connexion  with  the  real  Mus'  Fuller  than  he 
had  with  Mus'  Cox  or  Mus'  Pepper  or  Mus'  Bream.  He  was  a 
sign  that  had  lost  its  significance,  a  dream  of  someone  now 
awake,  a  nothing.  .  .  .  The  sun  did  not  shine  upon  him,  the 
minister  did  not  pray  for  him;  he  was  no  concern  of  those 
present,  a  dead  man  out  of  mind.  .  .  . 

Such  cold  comfort  Clem  got  from  the  burial  of  a  Christian 
man;  at  least  it  was  something  to  have  ceased  to  identify  his 
father  with  the  contents  of  that  shining  box — an  elm  coffin. 
Twelve  pounds  it  had  cost,  "but  folk  ull  expect  us  to  do  things 
praaper."  ...  On  the  way  home  the  horses  trotted,  and  the 
hedges  went  by  in  a  soft  powdering  of  light.  At  Bodingmares 
there  was  a  substantial  tea — with  brawn  and  cheese,  and  tinned 
salmon  and  tinned  peaches — and  if  it  was  not  seemly  to  talk 
much,  one  could  eat  the  more. 

§  II 

It  was  curious  to  feel  the  change  that  had  come  to  Boding- 
mares. As  soon  as  the  funeral  cloud  had  passed  the  sky  was 
sunnier  than  it  had  ever  been  before;  an  oppression  was  gone, 
a  misty  gloom,  it  was  easier  to  breathe  and  act  and  see.  James 
Fuller  had  never  been  a  tyrant,  he  had  ruled  chiefly  by  inter- 
ference, by  the  spoke  rather  than  the  whip,  nevertheless  he 
had  been  a  clog  on  growth  and  freedom.  The  progress  of 
Bodingmares  had  chafingly  dragged,  and  all  Jim's  enterprises 


40  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

had  been  fretted  and  peeled  into  ineffectiveness.  Now  the 
eldest  son  was  master,  and  free  to  develop  the  farm  beyond  his 
father's  market-garden  standards.  Bodingmares  should  be 
great  and  prosperous  and  worthy, 

Jim's  emancipation  would  have  had  its  effect  even  without 
the  general  lightening  of  the  atmosphere,  for  he  was  expan- 
sive in  his  new  satisfaction,  and  liked  to  see  himself  doing  the 
generous  thing  by  his  brothers.  The  day  after  the  funeral 
he  sent  for  them  both,  and  told  them  that  he  was  now  going 
to  run  the  farm  on  sound  business  lines.  It  was  not  sound 
business  to  have  forced  or  imwilling  labour,  so  he  offered 
Robert  twenty-three  shillings  a  week,  and  Clem  thirteen,  both 
of  them  to  pay  a  fixed  sum  weekly  towards  their  food;  their 
lodging,  since  he  was  not  out  of  pocket  by  it  and  most  yeomen 
lodged  their  hands,  should  be  free.  Clem  was  quite  bewildered 
by  this  generosity,  and  could  hardly  find  words  for  his  accep- 
tance, which  it  seemed  strange  that  his  brother  could  doubt. 
Robert  was  not  quite  so  overwhelmed,  but  he  accepted  all  the 
same. 

Clem  calculated  that  he  could  save  quite  seven  shillings 
every  week.  He  was  blissfully  happy,  and  his  gratitude  to 
Jim  involved  an  immense  amount  of  hard  work,  a  spending  of 
himself  in  his  brother's  service.  He  would  be  up  before  day- 
light, and  in  bed  long  after  everyone  except  Robert,  trying  his 
hardest  to  deserve  that  Saturday  morning's  mercy  of  thirteen 
shillings.  This  kind  of  life  did  not  allow  him  to  see  much  of 
Polly,  but  the  drench  and  draggle  of  November  did  not  offer 
the  same  temptations  to  lovers'  hedgerow  meetings. 

Besides,  his  work  was  giving  her  to  him  more  surely  than 
any  caresses,  bringing  nearer  the  day  when  she  should  belong 
to  him,  when  they  should  share  together  food  and  house  and 
work  and  sleep.  That  day  need  not  now  be  much  more  than 
two  years  ahead,  for  fifty  pounds  would  furnish  their  house 
and  pay  their  first  year's  rent,  and  buy  them  something  in  the 
way  of  pigs  and  fowls  to  set  up  stock  with.  It  is  true  that 
he  would  still  be  under  age,  but  he  did  not  expect  the  same 
opposition  from  Jim  as  from  his  father.    Like  any  decent  yeo- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  41 

man,  Jim  disapproved  of  the  "goings  on"  at  Orznash,  but  as 
his  disapproval  was  uncomplicated  by  religion  there  was  every 
chance  of  its  being  overcome.  Besides,  it  did  not  extend — 
at  least  in  the  same  intensity — to  Polly,  who  was  now,  at 
Elizabeth  Fuller's  invitation,  occasionally  to  be  found  in  the 
kitchen  at  Bodingmares. 

Poor  little  Polly  did  not  quite  see  her  lover's  new  remote- 
ness with  her  lover's  eyes.  She  could  not  share  his  abasement 
of  gratitude  towards  Jim — "done  no  more  fur  you  than  he 
shud  ought"  was  her  comment — and  she  found  an  honourable 
hour  with  Mrs.  Fuller  in  the  kitchen  a  poor  substitute  for 
those  uncovenanted  wanderings  by  field  and  stream. 

"Reckon  you  aun't  naun  of  a  sweetheart  to  me  now,  Clem," 
she  said  one  day  when,  having  lugg^ed  Ellen's  baby  all  the  way 
from  Orznash,  she  found  him  absorl5ed  and  sweaty  in  the  oast- 
barn,  slicing  roots, 

"Reckon  I'm  less  of  a  sweetheart  so's  I  can  be  more  of  a 
husband." 

"I'd  sooner  have  a  sweetheart  to-day  and  a  husband  two 
years  after  next." 

"It  ull  be  sooner'n  then,  I  guess.  I'm  putting  by  seven  bob 
a  week  regular." 

"And  if  Jim  says  *No'?  And  if  Faather  sends  me  away  to 
oe  a  sarvent?" 

"Jim  woan't  say  *No'  when  he  sees  what  a  stout  bit  of  money 
I've  saaved;  and  if  ever  you're  a  sarvent,  I'll  come  and  fetch 
you  out  that  wunst." 

"I'd  die  if  he  maade  me  a  sarvent — even  fur  one  month. 
And  now  he  says  it  oftener  and  oftener — that  Betty's  going 
to  have  a  child,  you  know." 

"All  the  more  reason  fur  him  to  kip  you  to  help  look  after 
it." 

"Betty  says  she'll  look  after  it  herself,  and  it  ull  be  better 
if  I  aun't  around  eating  idle  bread." 

She  looked  infinitely  pathetic  as  she  sat  there  on  the  straw, 
clasping  another  woman's  baby.  Clem  stooped  and  kissed 
her,  for  a  moment  holding  both  her  and  the  child  in  the  crook. 


42  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

of  his  strong,  weary  young  arm.  Her  eyes  lightened,  and  tak- 
ing a  handful  of  his  thick,  woolly  hair,  she  pulled  down  his 
head  between  hers  and  the  baby's.  .  .  . 

Suddenly  he  straightened  himself  and  stood  up. 

''I  mun  git  forrard  wud  them  roots.  Stop  and  have  a 
cup  of  tea  wud  us,  Poll." 

"Wot'll  your  mother  say?" 

"She'll  say  naun  but  wot's  kind." 

"And  your  brother  Jim?" 

"He  mun  be  civil  to  my  young  lady." 

Perhaps  it  would  have  been  as  well  if  Polh°  had  not  gone 
to  her  first  meal  at  Bodingmares  hugging  part  of  the  shame 
of  Orznash.  But  everything  passed  off  better  than  she  and 
Clem  had  any  right  to  hope.  The  family  was  still  in  its 
reactionary  state  of  good  humour,  and  though  at  first  Mary 
was  a  little  antagonistic  in  her  bustling,  and  Jim,  for  want 
of  a  remark  neither  cordial  nor  offensive,  said  nothing  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  the  meal  soon  became  friendly.  Mrs. 
Fuller  had  always  been  compassionately  disposed  towards 
the  poor  little  girl  from  Orznash — "not  but  it  wur  silly  of  Clem 
to  talk  of  marrying  her  and  him  naun  but  a  boy" — and  Robert, 
with  vague  ideas  of  gratitude  and  atonement  in  his  heart,  was 
almost  embarrassingly  amiable.  Polly  did  not  talk  much;  she 
sat  quite  humbly  between  Clem  and  his  mother,  conscious — 
as  her  lover  was  not — that  the  friendliness  of  everyone,  save 
Robert's,  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  she  was  so  reassur- 
ingly little,  only  a  bit  of  a  child,  and  now  that  they  had  prop- 
erly seen  her  and  spoken  to  her  they  were  sure  that  there 
could  be  nothing  serious  between  her  and  Clem. 

The  loud  yells  of  Ellen's  baby  made  it  necessary  that  Polly 
should  take  her  back  to  her  mother  directly  tea  was  over. 

"I  didn't  bargain  to  kip  her  out  so  long,"  she  apologized; 
"you've  bin  middling  kind  to  me,  ma'am,  asking  me  to  stay." 

Clem  walked  with  her  to  the  bottom  of  Orznash  drive.  He 
felt  exhilarated  at  this  new  prospect  of  toleration.  His  bold- 
ness had  been  justified;  if  he  worked  carefully,  fifty  pounds 
and  the  family's  goodwill  ought  to  be  his  at  the  same  time. 
In  that  respect  it  was  providential  that  his  father  had  died 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  43 

.  .  .  the  hard  young  thought  scarcely  woke  a  reproach  in  him 
now  He  had  ceased  to  be  ashamed  of  his  reUef.  At  first 
it  had  caused  him  some  pangs — poor  Faather,  whom  he  had 
always  pitied.  .  .  .  He  did  not  pity  him  now,  and  that  was 
perhaps  one  reason  why  he  could  not  feel  ashamed  of  his  hap- 
piness and  sense  of  freedom.  He  had  once  or  twice  dreamed 
very  comfortably  of  Mus'  Fuller,  dreams  in  v/hich  the  dead 
father  was  free  and  happy  too.  That  was  what  seemed  to  take 
away  the  feeling  of  treachery.  His  father  had  been  unhappy 
while  he  lived — though  he  had  then,  as  Clem  knew  well,  hid- 
den springs  of  joy  which  ordinary  people  could  not  under- 
stand— but  now  he  was  dead  the  joy  had  come  up  from  the 
hidden  springs.  ...  So  he  was  happy,  and  free  among  the 
dead — as  the  Psalm  said. 

He  had  had  one  dream  which  was  so  peculiar  that  he  had 
not  told  it  to  anyone,  even  to  Robert.  He  dreamed  that  he 
saw  his  father  eating  his  supper  in  the  kitchen,  and  wearing 
that  bright  and  contented  look  which  he  always  wore  in 
Clem's  dreams.  Clem  was  with  him,  and  said,  "You  feel  bet- 
ter, doan't  you,  Faather?"  Mus'  Fuller  said,  "Yus — now  that 
the  Flaming  Judgment  is  taaken  away."  Clem  looked  up  and 
saw  floating  in  a  comer  of  the  room  a  Bible  with  flames  of 
fire  running  out  from  under  the  covers.  He  was  so  frightened 
that  he  woke. 

§  12 

Robert  had  quickly  and  unaccountably,  almost  absurdly, 
recovered  from  his  grief  at  his  father's  death.  His  attitude 
confirmed  the  general  impression  of  hypocrisy.  He  seemed  the 
only  one  of  the  family  who  felt  no  secret  shame  at  the  new 
lightheartedness.  During  Mus'  Fuller's  lifetime,  his  exuber- 
ance had  been  often  sharpened  and  smitten  into  hostility;  now, 
without  discipline,  it  functioned  as  riotous  good-humour,  which 
seemed  positively  indecent  under  the  circumstances.  No  long- 
er soured  by  conflict,  he  filled  the  house  with  a  sense  of  out- 
rageous heartiness. 

Clem  alone  of  the  family  did  not  put  down  Robert's  good 
spirits  entirely  to  relief  at  Mus'  Fuller's  death.     He  breathed 


44  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

the  general  atmosphere  of  hghtness,  it  is  true,  but  there  must 
be  deeper  causes  for  his  new  ease.  Bob  had  had  other  griefs 
than  his  father's  repression;  he  had  been  consumed  with  his 
desire  for  Hannah  Iden,  for  the  gipsy  rubbish  who  thought  her- 
self beyond  the  price  he  paid  for  decent  Sussex  girls.  For 
him  to  be  so  happy  now  he  must  either  have  forgotten  her 
or  he  must  possess  her. 

The  first  was  unlikely,  for  though  Robert  easily  forgot,  he 
did  not  forget  till  after  he  had  gott^;  besides,  if  the  Iden 
episode  were  over,  the  details  of  it  would  now  be  in  Clem's 
possession — the  baffling,  humbling  secrecy  would  be  gone. 
Nothing  less  than  Hannah's  witchcraft  could  tie  Bob's  auda- 
cious tongue.  He  must  have  won  her,  bought  her  at  last. 
And  he  was  happy;  his  conquest  made  him  tolerant  and  good- 
natured  to  everyone.  Just  as  she  had  been  harder  to  get 
than  other  girls,  so  she  was  better  worth  having.  But  it  was 
queer  that  Robert  should  still  keep  silence  like  this,  that  he 
should  not  tell  Clem  of  his  rapture,  as  he  had  so  often  done  be- 
fore, of  his  kisses  and  roamings  and  treatings,  of  his  power  over 
smiles  and  tears.  For  Robert  had  always  been  a  boaster  in 
conquest.  He  did  not  boast  now;  he  was  just  happy  and  noisy 
and  satisfied. 

Then  at  the  end  of  January  Robert  borrowed  another  thirty 
shillings  off  his  brother,  making  a  debt  of  two  pounds  five  in 
all.  Clem  had  expostulated  and  pleaded,  but  he  had  no  power 
against  Bob's  disgust  at  his  meanness,  and  ended  by  handing 
over  the  money,  though  he  had  small  hopes  of  its  being  repaid, 
even  partially. 

He  tried  hard  not  to  think  about  it;  he  didn't  want  to  be- 
come the  sort  of  chap  who  always  thought  about  money.  Yet 
how  could  he  help  it?  It  wasn't  only  for  his  own  sake;  there 
was  Polly  too.  It  was  middling  hard,  ...  Of  course  it  was 
a  bit  his  own  fault;  he  ought  to  have  said  "No"  to  Bob.  He 
would  say  it  next  time;  but  habit  and  affection  made  it  almost 
impossible  for  him  to  deny  his  brother. 

One  evening  as  he  was  passing  Weights'  farm,  which  stands 
back  a  furlong  from  the  street,  Bill  Pepper  of  Weights  called 
to  him  from  the  drive: 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  45 

"Seen  Hannah  Iden's  watch-bracelet?" 

"Wotcher  say?''  asked  Clem,  not  understanding  quite. 

"I  ask  you — have  you  seen  Hannah  Iden's  watch- bracelet, 
wot  your  brother  Robert  guv  her?  ' 

"Robert  aun't  guv  her  naun  of  the  lik." 

"That's  queer,  seeing  as  she's  got  a  beauty — a  gold  un." 

"Reckon  Hannah  Iden's  got  a  dunnamany  ways  of  gitting  a 
watch-bracelet  if  she  wants  one." 

Pepper  sniggered. 

"Reckon  she  has.  Howsumdever,  Robert  Fuller's  her  main 
way  of  gitting  things  at  present." 

"Bob  aun't  got  the  cash  to  give  anyone  gold  watches, 
surely  e." 

"Not  after  wot  happened  at  the  Woolpack  last  week?" 

In  the  misery  of  realizing  that  he  had  not  the  slightest  idea 
what  had  happened  at  the  Woolpack  last  week,  Clem  lost  the 
conviction  of  his  defence,  and  began  to  plunge. 

"Bob — wot  shud  he  give  aught  to  Hannah  Iden  fur?  She's 
naun  to  him." 

"Ha!  ha  I"  laughed  Pepper  of  Weights. 

"I  tell  you  Bob  he  doan't  care  two  moldy  onions  fur  Han- 
nah Iden.'' 

"That's  odd,  seeing  as  he  goes  to  Blindgrooms  regular  every 
evenun,  and  many  a  time  I  aun't  seen  him  come  out  till  the 
night's  turned." 

"That's  odd  too,  seeing  as  I  sleep  wud  Bob  and  he's  a-bed 
in  our  room  at  ten  o'clock  punctual  every  night." 

"You  liddle  liar,"  grinned  Pepper. 

"I  aun't  liddle" — Clem  was  sensitive  to  his  height. 

"That's  all  right,  so  long  as  you  doan't  say  you  aun't  a 
liar.  You've  gone  a  bit  too  far  in  sticking  by  your  brother, 
young  Clem.    You  aun't  so  durn  innercent  as  all  that." 

"I  aun't  innercent  at  all,  and  if  you  go  on  miscalling  me. 
Bill  Pepper,  you'll  find  as " 

"Kip  your  fistses  down,  young  feller.  I  aun't  miscalling  you. 
But  I've  just  one  bit  of  advice  to  give  you,  as  coming  from  a 
man  wot's  seen  life  and  earned  his  living  into  the  bargain, 
which  aun't  always  done.     You  kip  clear  of  dirt,  and  doan't 


46  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

git  in  wud  any  lazy,  lousy,  loose-living  set.  I'm  sometimes 
afraid  fur  you — that  you'll  go  your  brother's  way — you  seem 
to  turn  natural  towards  wot's  low.  You  stick  up  close  to  your 
brother  Robert,  wot's  a  bad  character,  and  you  stand  off  your 
brother  Jim,  wot's  a  good  'un — and  you're  thick  wud  them 
at   Orznash,   wot's " 

A  mouthful  of  Sussex  clay  prevented  any  definition  of  Orz- 
nash, and  by  the  time  that  Bill  Pepper  had  choked  and  spat 
his  way  to  utterance,  Clem  was  half-way  out  of  the  village. 

"Liddle  gutter  chap — that's  wot  he  is,  that  Clem  Fuller. 
No  better'n  a  street  boy.  .  .  ." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Clem  had  his  own  doubts  as  to  the 
effectiveness  and  dignity  of  his  conduct.  Close  on  eighteen 
and  going  to  be  married  ...  he  ought  to  have  grown  out  of 
throwing  things  at  people.  However,  he  guessed  rightly  that 
the  present  was  not  the  suitable  moment  to  return  with  apolo- 
gies, so  put  them  off  to  some  future  occasion  when  they  might 
be  better  received. 

§  13 

He  reached  home  late  for  supper,  and  Jim  grumbled  at  him 
for  ''spannelling  araound"  when  he  was  wanted  for  the  ewes. 
Mary  grumbled,  too,  because  she  wanted  to  clear  the  table. 
They  found  their  culprit  silent  and  without  excuses — his  one 
wish  seemed  to  be  to  eat  his  supper  and  go  to  bed.  Therefore 
Jim  kept  him  working  at  the  com  accounts  till  it  was  nearly 
ten  and  any  more  of  Clem's  arithmetic  would  have  made  book- 
keeping impossible  for  at  least  a  fortnight;  and  Mary  insisted 
that  before  he  went  upstairs  he  should  go  into  the  scullery 
and  wash  up  his  own  plate  and  cup,  since  he  had  made  more 
trouble  by  being  late.  Then  their  punitive  instincts  were  satis- 
fied, and  they  forgave  him. 

Clem  went  slowly  up  to  bed,  dragging  his  feet  from  stair 
to  stair  and  spilling  grease  from  his  candle.  He  felt  very  tired, 
and  muddled  with  the  sums.  But  his  chief  feeling  was  one 
of  thankfulness  that  Robert  had  not  yet  come  home.     Clem 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST   "  47" 

had  effectually  missed  him  by  being  late  for  supper;  when  his 
brother  returned  he  would  be  asleep. 

But  he  had  reckoned  without  the  thickness  of  Robert's  boots, 
which  it  never  occurred  to  him  to  take  off  on  his  brother's 
account.  His  elephantine  tread  broke  into  Clem's  sleep,  which 
the  sums  had  made  lighter  than  usual.  At  first  he  fought 
against  returning  consciourness,  but  he  was  too  restless  and 
Bob  was  too  noisy  for  sleep  to  be  easily  won  again,  and  in 
a  moment  or  two  he  was  broad  awake. 

The  window  was  uncurtained,  and  showed  a  deep  sky 
dazzled  with  frosty  stars.  Outside  lay  the  great  stillness  of 
midnight;  inside  the  room  the  boards  creaked  as  Robert 
moved  to  and  fro,  undressing  himself.  His  candle  stood  on  a 
chair  by  his  bed  and  lit  up  his  side  of  the  room,  while  Clem 
lay  in  darkness.  He  lay  quite  still,  not  wishing  Robert  to 
know  he  was  awake,  but  as  he  watched  him  he  felt  love  and 
compassion  rising  up  in  his  heart.  There  was  something  about 
Bob,  as  he  laboriously  and  creakingly  undressed  himself,  sit- 
ting on  the  bed  to  unstrap  his  gaiters,  or  stooping  and  fumbling 
with  his  braces,  while  his  big  shadow  stooped  and  hung  on 
the  wall  behind  him,  something  about  his  bigness,  his  un- 
awareness,  the  half-satisfied,  half-sheepish  look  that  his  face 
wore  when  he  thought  himself  unwatched,  that  melted  away 
Clem's  annoyance,  that  made  him  lift  himself  on  his  elbow 
and  call  gently: 

"I'm  awake,  Bob." 

"Go  to  sleep,  then,"  was  Bob's  discouraging  reply. 

But  Clem  was  now  definitely,  if  unconsciously,  aware  of  an 
advantage  over  his  brother,  so  he  did  not  lie  down  obediently 
under  the  bedclothes,  as  he  would  have  done  the  night  before; 
instead,  he  raised  his  voice  a  little  and  said 

*T  want  to  speak  to  you." 

Robert  swore,  but  made  no  other  objection. 

"I  want  to  ask  you  why  you've  guv  Hannah  Iden  a  gold 
watch  wud  my  money." 

"I  aun't  guv  her  naun  wud  your  money." 

"That's  a  lie.    You  know  as  you've  got  thirty  bob  of  minC; 


48  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

besides  wot  you  didn't  pay,  when  you  said  you  hadn't  got  it, 
though  I  know  now  as  you  had." 

"You're  a  mean  liddle  devil  if  you  can't  give  a  loanst  to 
your  own  brother." 

"It  aun't  that  I  mind  so  much — it's  your  telling  me  lies 
about  it  and  spending  it  on  her." 

"I'll  spend  it  on  whom  I  choose." 

"Not  my  money." 

"Adone,  do,  wud  your  everlasting  money.  You  talk  as  if 
your  money  ud  have  bought  Hannah  a  gold  watch.  That 
watch  cost  me  more'n  five  paound,  so  hold  your  tongue  about 
your  thirty  shillun." 

Clem  felt  rebuked. 

"I  shudn't  have  said  naun  if  you'd  told  me  things  out.  But 
you  hide  everything  from  me  and  go  your  own  way  like  a  cat 
on  the  tiles — you  never  tell  me  a  ward." 

"Why  shud  I  tell  you?    You're  only  a  kid." 

"I  aun't  a  kid — I'll  be  eighteen  by  the  spring  sowings,  and 
I'm  booked  to  be  married  as  soon  as  you'll  let  me  saave  the  tin. 
Anyways,  you've  always  toald  me  things  before.  Why  should 
you  stop  now?" 

"There's  never  bin  anything  lik  this." 

The  two  pairs  of  eyes — Clem's  round,  alert  and  yellow, 
Robert's  bulging,  heavy  and  blue — met  across  the  room,  and 
held  each  other  in  a  characteristic  stare. 

"Wot  d'you  mean?"  asked  Clem. 

"I  mean  as  Hannah's  not  lik  the  other  girls,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  tell  you  aught  about  her,  surelye." 

Clem  felt  a  sudden  nervousness;  he  seemed  to  lose  his  ad- 
vantage over  Bob. 

"I — I "  he  stammered.    "I  thought  as  how  you'd  only 

taaken  her  on  to  sarve  out  God." 

"Wot  shud  I  want  to  sarve  out  God  fur?" 

"Because  he  maade  a  fool  of  you." 

"Oh,  that!"  and  Robert  grinned.  "Well,  wotsumdever  I 
meant  by  it  wunst,  I've  helped  myself  to  the  finest  woman 
south  of  Kent  Ditch." 

"Is  she  sweet  to  love?" 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  49 

"Is  she  sweet!  Is  the  fire  sweet?  Is  the  winter  sweet? 
Reckon  you  don't  know  naun  of  love.  There's  hard  and  soft 
love,  saum  as  there's  hard  and  soft  kisses  .  ,  ,  there's  a  kind 
wot  maakes  your  heart  like  a  broaken  stoan." 

He  was  sitting  on  his  bed,  and  he  lifted  his  chin  with  a  queer, 
rapt  look — very  much  like  what  Clem  had  sometimes  seen  on 
his  face  in  chapel,  but  not  so  foolish.  In  his  eyes  was  a  strange 
new  wisdom;  the  younger  brother  felt  himself  silenced. 

"I  love  her,"  said  Robert,  "not  because  she's  sweet,  but 
because  I  can't  help  it,  surelye." 

"And  does  she  love  you?" 

"She'll  let  me  love  her — that's  all  I  ask.  All  I  ask  is  fur  her 
to  taake  me  and  let  me  love  her.  Reckon  she's  been  hard  to 
win,  but  then  she  wum't  a-going  so  cheap  as  other  girls." 

"Shud  you  want  to  marry  her?" 

"Want?  Of  course  I  want.  But  we  come  of  different  folk, 
and  she  can't  abide  our  ways." 

"Reckon  we'd  never  abide  her'n.  Wot  ud  Jim  say  if  you 
brung  her  home  fur  his  sister-law?" 

"You'd  better  mind  wot  you  say,  anyways." 

"I  aun't  miscalling  her.  You're  tedious  short  wud  me.  Bob. 
It's  only  natural  as  I  shudn't  git  things  clear  at  fust,  seeing 
as  you've  kept  me  in  the  dark  this  two  month." 

"Thur  you  go  wud  your  everlasting  grumble — 'kept  you  in 
the  dark/  'not  toald  you  aught' — you  maake  trouble  lik  a  straw- 
rope  twister.  Wot's  the  sense  of  my  telling  you  about  Hannah 
Iden,  seeing  as  you  doan't  know  naun  about  love?  Oh, 
you  needn't  fire  up  and  say  as  you're  booked  to  be  married. 
That  doan't  show  you  much.  You're  but  a  white  boy,  wot's 
never  known  a  woman  y  ,  <  never  known  love  in  your  body. 
And  I  tell  you  as  my  Hannah  aun't  lik  your  Poll.  Reckon 
your  Poll's  'sweet  to  love' — Hannah  aun't  sweet.  And  she 
doan't  give  herself  fur  naun.  And  she  doan't  want  a  boy  to 
love  her — she  wants  a  man  .  .  .  and  I'm  that  man  so  long 
as  I'm  man  enough.  You  marry  your  Poll  Ebony,  and  she'll 
miiake  you  happy.  Hannah  wurn't  born  to  maake  men  happy 
—she  wur  bom  to  maake  them  men." 

He  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  his  head  flung  up,  his 


50  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

eyes  unusually  awake  and  aware.  He  looked  enormous  in  the 
shifting  light  of  the  candle,  which,  as  the  draught  shook  it, 
sent  his  shadow  heeling  over  wall  and  rafters.  His  bare  arms 
were  folded  over  his  chest,  and  the  play  of  light  and  darkness 
on  their  muscles,  and  on  the  big  muscles  of  his  back  and  neck, 
gave  a  glowing  impression  of  beauty  and  strength. 

"Reckon  you  are  a  man,"  said  Clem  admiringly. 

Robert  was  pleased. 

"You  mustn't  think  as  I've  turned  agaunst  you,  young  'un — 
only  I'd  sooner  you  didn't  meddle  wud  wot  aun't  your  concern." 

"Reckon  my  money's  my  concern." 

"If  you  say  another  word  about  your  money  I'll  smack  your 
head." 

"It's  only  because  I  want  it  to  git  married." 

"Well,  you'll  have  it — and  years  before  you're  ever  lik  to 
git  married,  liddle  boy.    So  hoald  your  tongue." 

§  14 

Clem  found  that  he  had  to  change  his  attitude  towards 
Robert  and  Hannah — it  became  more  humble.  He  could  not 
treat  his  brother  the  same  as  when  he  thought  he  was  just 
being  lustful  and  obstinate.  The  tact — which  he  received  and 
believed — that  now,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  of  squandered 
experience,  Robert  was  truly  in  love,  filled  him  with  deference, 
but  not  with  rejoicing.  In  spite  of  all  that  Robert  had  said, 
he  could  see  nothing  but  sorrow  in  his  love  for  the  dark,  out- 
landish woman.  He  felt  sure  that  Hannah  did  not  love  Bob, 
or,  by  his  simple  calculations,  she  would  never  have  taken  so 
much  from  him.  What  would  Polly  say  if  Clem  were  to  spend 
five  pounds  on  her?    Reckon  she'd  have  a  fit! 

There  was  no  doubt  but  that  Hannah  was  a  bad  lot,  and 
not  merely  a  bad  lot  as  they  go  in  the  Rother  villages,  but 
with  all  the  deeper  dye  of  Egypt.  It  was  true  that  Clem  had 
hardly  ever  spoken  to  her,  but  there  was  a  definite  tradition 
about  her  in  High  Tilt — and  about  her  mother  Leonora  and 
her  cousins  Ambrose  and  Darius  Ripley  and  Jerome  Bosville. 

Polly  shared,  or  rather  concentrated,  the  local  points  of 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  51 

view  She  was  also  extremely  annoyed  about  the  money.  To 
hear  her  talk  one  would  think  that  Bob's  two  pound  five  was  all 
that  stood  between  them  and  their  marriage. 

"Reckon  you  wur  a  gurt  owl  to  have  let  him  have  it,  Clem. 
And  it  wum't  seemly,  nuther — you  must  have  known  how  he'd 
spend  it.     Reckon  you  love  him  more'n  you  love  me." 

"Poll,  you  know  as  that  aun't  true." 

"How  am  I  to  know  it,  wud  you  letting  him  spend  our 
marriage  money  on  his  fancy  girl,  buying  her  brooches  and 
rings  and  bracelets,  wot  all  the  plaace  talks  about.  Reckon 
your  brother  Jim  woan't  have  any  call  to  be  ashamed  of  your 
marrj'ing  up  at  Orznash,  seeing  as  thur's  wuss  shaame  in  your 
own  house." 

Clem  tried  to  soothe  her  with  caresses  that  were  now  grow- 
ing bolder.  But  Polly  was  sore  and  sick,  and  he  was  bound 
to  acknowledge  that  there  was  much  to  be  said  for  her  atti- 
tude. Moreover  she  was  going  through  a  bad  time  at  home. 
Betty,  whose  kmdness  had  always  been  erratic  and  occasional, 
was  turning  more  and  more  against  her  now  that  her  time  was 
near.  She  was  jealous  of  her  man's  child  by  another  woman, 
and  morbidly  afraid  that  the  child  she  was  about  to  give  him 
might  suffer  as  the  second-born.  During  the  languor  and 
inertia  which  the  later  months  had  brought  it  had  seemed  to 
her  that  Tom  Ebony  had  come  to  rely  more  on  his  active  daugh- 
ter— Poll  had  acquired  a  value  in  the  house.  So  Betty  vowed 
that  she  should  go  out  of  it — into  service,  or — since  Betty 
was  not  really  ill-natured — with  some  boy  who  would  take  her 
away  at  once,  and  not  go  hanging  around  waiting  till  he'd 
saved  enough  to  be  married,  like  Clem  Fuller. 

"Oh,  Clem — let's  do  summat  quick.  It's  tar'ble  waiting 
lik  this  and  feeling  as  I  doan't  belong  to  naun  but  them  wot's 
set  to  git  shut  of  me." 

"Wot  can  we  do  but  try  and  saave,  and  try  and  git  araound 
Jim?  We  can't  be  married  wudout  any  tin,  surelye,  and  till 
Jim  turns  friendly  we  can't  be  married  wudout  one  of  us  is 
twenty-one." 

"Reckon  Jim's  beginning  to  git  friendly." 

"Aye — he's  beginning,  but  he  aun't  done  it  yet.    I  spuck  to 


52  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

him  about  marrying  two  days  agone,  and  he  toald  me  to  wait 
till  I  wur  growd  up" — and  Clem  spat. 

"Reckon  it's  a  pity  you're  so  middling  stuggy,  or  maybe 
we  could  have  gone  to  one  of  them  registers  or  plaaces  where 
they  marry  you  wudout  a  parson,  and  then  you  say  you're 
twenty-one.    But  you  look  no  more'n  a  lad  of  sixteen,  surelye." 

Clem  was  a  little  huffed.  "Wot  you  want  is  some  more  of 
patience,  my  gal.  I  tell  you  as  I'm  warking  steady  and  sure  to 
git  us  wed,  and,  if  you  trust  me,  reckon  I'll  have  done  it  before 
the  year's  out,  fur  all  I  look  but  sixteen." 

"I  dudn't  mean  to  mock  at  you,  Clem.  But  reckon  as  it's 
unaccountable  fretting  being  as  I  am,  and  never  knowing 
as  one  marnun  they  woan't  say:  'Pack  your  box,  my 
gal,  fur  I've  fixed  fur  it  to  be  fetched  from  somewheres  over 
at  Berrish — or  Wadhurst  or  Bulverhythe,  maybe — and  off  you 
go  and  earn  your  own  bread  instead  of  eating  ourn.'  And  then 
Steve  Alee  from  Nineveh,  he  come  a-vrothering  me,  saying  as 
he'll  taake  care  of  me  if  I  go  to  him,  and  that  Betty  fur  always 
trying  to  maake  me  go.  .  .  ." 

*'You  tell  me  next  time  Steve  Alee  he  asks  you  that,  and 
I'll  go  over  to  Nineveh  and  break  his  faace  and  his  jaw  and  his 
head  and  everythink  he's  got  on  him,  fur  all  I  look  no  more'n 
sixteen." 

"I  know  as  you  would,  Clem,  and  that's  why  I  never  tell 
you.  I  doan't  want  you  to  git  fighting,  fur  all  as  I  know 
you'd  win.  Fur  Steve's  a  low  kind,  and  ud  maake  trouble. 
Dad  wur  saying  only  t'other  day  as  you  can't  bash  a  feller 
the  ways  you  could  wunst.  Fur  Ellen's  got  a  new  boy,  and  he's 
jealous  of  Dad,  and  he  maakes  trouble  by  telling  Betty  as 
Dad's  after  Ellen  now.  .  .  ." 

He  drew  her  to  him,  and  kissed  her,  as  if  he  would  kiss 
the  defilement  of  her  home  from  her  lips. 

§  IS 

One  day  early  in  March,  when  he  was  walking  home  from 
High  Tilt,  smoking  a  cigarette  which  Cox  of  Haiselman's  had 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  53 

given  him,  he  unexpectedly  encountered  Hannah  Iden.  She 
seemed  to  blow  up  the  lane  before  the  spring  wind,  her  brown 
dress  swelling  like  a  sail,  all  the  wicked  feathers  of  her  hat 
flying  out  together  in  a  thin  blurred  line  like  a  cirrus  cloud. 
Clem  looked  straight  ahead  of  him  as  she  passed,  his  chin 
high,  his  teeth  so  firmly  clenched  on  his  cigarette  that  to  his 
chagrin  he  bit  it  in  half.  He  heard  her  go  by,  then  was 
irresistibly  impelled  to  turn  round  and  gaze  after  her.  To 
his  disgust  he  saw  that  she  was  looking  back  too. 

"Are  you  going  to  ^eak  to  me?" 

He  blushed  furiously,  and  would  have  walked  on  if  it  had 
not  suddenly  struck  him  that  here  was  a  chance  of  finding 
out  more  about  her  and  Robert,  and  if  she  really  loved  his 
brother.  He  stood  hesitating,  and  she  strolled  back  towards 
him,  her  eyes  slanting  in  a  laugh  that  was  not  on  her  lips. 

"You've  gorgeous  manners,  passing  by  a  female  without  tak- 
ing off  your  cap." 

Her  voice  accented  the  "furrin"  note  struck  by  her  appear- 
ance. It  lacked  both  the  local  drawl  and  the  local  idiom,  and 
yet  it  was  not  a  genteel  voice.  Clem's  heart  hardened  against 
her. 

"I  aun't  awares  as  I've  got  your  acquaintance,  miss,"  he 
said  loftily. 

"Then  it's  time  you  got  acquainted  with  your  brother's 
female  friend.  Now  let  us  begin  to  get  acquainted.  You 
takes  off  your  cap  and  you  says,  'Pleased  to  meet  you';  and 
I  says,  'You're  a  gorgeous  young  gentleman — too  gorgeous  to 
be  enemies  against  me.'  " 

Clem  stood  before  her  as  stiff  as  a  rake. 

"I  aun't  enemies  agiiunst  you.  But  reckon  I  aun't  friends, 
seeing  the  ways  you've  sarved  my  brother." 

"Have  I  served  him  badly,  then?  He's  never  been  happier 
than  he's  been  with  me." 

"But  you  taake  his  money — you  maake  him  give  you  things 
wot  cost  more'n  he  earns." 

"If  the  sweet  gentleman  likes  to  give  presents  to  the  poor 
person's  child.  .  .  ." 


54  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"You  know  it  aun't  that.  He'd  never  have  guv  you  all  them 
things  if  you  hadn't  maade  him,  surelye.  Reckon  you  bd  him 
on  and  promised  him  naun  saave  he  paid  fur  it." 

"Mind  your  manners,  young  chap.  I  ain't  used  to  being 
spoken  to  disrespectful.  If  your  brothet  loves  me  and  gives 
me  presents,  it's  none  of  my  doing.  I  don't  go  out  after  men; 
they  comes  after  me." 

"But  you  maade  him  come.  And  now  he's  come  he  can't  go 
wudout  you  let  him." 

"You  talk  as  if  I  was  chohawnee  and  knew  spells.  No 
doubt  there's  females  among  us  what  knows  more  than  the 
moon  knows.  But  they  ain't  taught  me  nothing — I've  no  need. 
I've  got  my  own  spells.  Shall  I  show  them  to  Bob's  little 
brother?  No — he's  too  young  a  child.  But  I'll  tell  you,  little 
brother,  I've  got  spells  in  my  eyes  and  my  fingers  and  my  lips 
and  my  throat  and  my  breast,  what  no  wise  female  has  never 
no  need  to  show  me." 

She  stood  before  him  hugging  her  red  shawl  round  her 
shoulders,  her  hands  hidden  in  its  folds,  as  with  her  crossed 
arms  she  held  it  over  her  breast.  Her  attitude  was  all  reticence 
and  veiling,  yet  Clem  suddenly  felt  his  throat  thicken  with 
the  sense  of  her  beauty.  He  had  never  before  been  so  deeply 
affected  by  a  woman.  For  a  moment  he  felt  her  power,  crude, 
physical,  yet  with  an  almost  mournful  appeal  to  his  higher 
senses,  to  all  in  him  that  was  stirred  by  the  scudding  March 
day,  and  the  grey,  tumbled  sky  that  hung  low  over  the  fields. 
.  .  .  She  seemed  to  make  that  appeal  and  fail  to  sustain  it, 
dropping  back  to  lower,  physical  inspirations.  He  found  him- 
self stepping  backward,  as  a  man  would  step  out  of  a  shadow. 

"Don't  be  afraid  of  me,  little  brother;  all  prickles  like  a 
hedgehog.  When  I  saw  you  coming  along  the  road  I  says  to 
myself,  'Here's  my  chance  of  getting  to  know  my  pretty  brother 
with  the  woolly  hair.  It's  a  pity  he  should  be  set  against  me 
just  because  I'm  kind  to  his  brother  Robert.'  " 

"If  I  thought  as  you  really  wur  kind  and  ud  always  be 
kind.  .  .  ." 

"And  what  makes  you  think  different?" 

"I  dunno  .  .  .  it's  your  looks  and  your  ways  .  .  .  and  your 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  SS 

taaking  so  much  .  .  .  and  wot  Bob's  toald  me,  and  the  way 
he's  turned  all  secret,  .  .  ." 

''But  he's  happy  now.  Your  own  eyes  can  see  how  happy 
he  is." 

"I've  a  feeling  as  it  woan't  last.  How  can  it  last  when  he 
says  as  he  knows  you  doan't  love  him?  And  he  says  his  heart's 
lik  a  broaken  stoan.  .  .  .  Reckon  one  day  he'll  want  a  bit 
of  love  back  fur  all  the  love  he's  given  .  .  .  and  then  I  hope 
as  his  broaken  heart  ull  be  lik  the  stoan  in  the  Bible,  and  ull 
fall  on  you  and  grind  you  up  to  powder." 

"You  talks  gorgeous  and  terrible.  I  likes  to  see  you  angry — 
j^our  eyes  shine  like  a  cat's  when  she's  in  the  dark.  You've 
shining  eyes  and  a  mouth  to  give  joy,  and  yet  you're  afraid  of 
love.  You're  afraid  of  me  because  I've  taught  your  Bob  how  to 
love,  as  none  of  the  silly,  fat  young  girls  in  this  place  have 
taught  him.  I  loves  Romanly,  not  like  the  silly  rawnees — 
laughing  with  their  big  mouths  out  of  their  red  faces.  I 
could  teach  you  how  to  love,  little  hedgehog,  if  I  hadn't  your 
brother  for  scholard.  There's  my  cousin  Yocky  Lovell  that  ud 
teach  you,  if  one  night  you'd  come  along  with  your  brother 
to  Blindgrooms.  Why  don't  you  go  with  him  where  he  goes 
instead  of  whining  after  him?  There,  you  needn't  blush.  I 
haven't  said  nothing  unfit  for  a  female's  tongue  or  a  young 
chap's  ears." 

But  Clem,  calling  her  a  name  unfit  for  a  female's  ears  or 
a  young  chap's  tongue,  walked  furiously  away,  and  left  her 
standing  like  some  dark  image  in  the  lane. 

§  i6 

For  long  afterwards  her  shadow  seemed  to  lie  on  the  dusk 
— on  the  wet  gleam  of  the  road,  on  the  twigs  and  spines  of 
the  thorny  hedges,  on  the  clear  sky  with  its  spatter  of  yellow 
rain.  Yet  it  was  not  her  beauty  which  defiled,  but  the  cruelty 
in  which  it  was  rooted  like  a  rose  tree  in  dung.  She  was 
cruel — he  saw  now  that  the  stain  was  not  in  her  loveliness  nor 
in  her  "furrinness"  nor  in  her  coarseness,  but  in  some  under- 
lying and  perverse  depth  of  mortal  cruelty. 


56  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

He  could  not  tell  how  he  knew  this — her  voice  had  been  soft, 
her  words  caressing,  and  her  eyes  both  merry  and  sad.  But 
she  had  left  the  taste  of  cruelty — the  conviction  that  she  had 
spoken  to  him  only  that  she  might  torment  him,  punish  his 
dislike  of  her  by  showing  him  her  power  over  Bob.  Her  crude 
physical  power  would  not  have  disgusted  him  if  it  had  had  its 
accustomed  growth  out  of  a  healthy  instinct.  He  was  not  the 
type  easily  revolted  by  such  things.  But  she  was  like  the 
bitter  kernel  of  a  ripe,  sweet  fruit — she  was  the  hard  stone  in 
nature's  heart.  .  .  . 

By  the  time  he  reached  Bodingmares  he  was  tired  and  de- 
pressed, and  nothing  happened  there  to  lighten  his  heart. 
Robert  was  not  in  for  supper,  and  did  not  come  in  by  the 
time  the  family  went  to  bed.  It  was  not  a  local  necessity  or 
custom  to  lock  up  house  at  night,  but  Robert's  absence  at 
this  hour  never  failed  to  provoke  some  sour  comment  from 
Jim  or  Mary. 

"Whur's  your  brother  to-night — d'you  know,  Clem?" 

''I  dunno." 

"Maybe  he'll  have  gone  to  the  Oddfellows'  smoking  concert 
at  the  George,"  said  Mrs.  Fuller.  "Harry  Wheelsgate's  a-go- 
ing, and  Mus'  Willard  and  Mus'  Pepper.    I  hear  as  Jerry  Font's 

to  sing." 

Clem  was  grateful  to  his  mother  for  having  suggested  such 
a  respectable  engagement  for  Bob,  even  though  he  was  well 
aware  that  no  one,  not  even  herself,  believed  in  it.  But  her 
step-children  were  vexed  at  her. 

"Adone-do,  can't  you.  Mother,  wud  sticking  up  fur  Bob. 
Leave  that  to  Clem,"  said  Mary;  "he'll  tell  all  the  lies  any- 
body wants." 

"Well,  why  shudn't  he  have  gone  to  the  George?  Reckon 
half  the  parish  is  going." 

"When  Bob  goes  to  the  George,  he  doan't  go  to  listen  to 
songs  and  speeches,  but  to  drink  spirits  and  play  billiards,  or  to 
make  bets  on  horses,  or  to  borrer  money  off  the  landlord." 

"And  we  all  know  where  Bob  is  to-night  and  every  night," 
said  Jim,  "he's  at  Blindgrooms." 

They  all,  even  Jim  himself,  stiffened  at  this  blunt  mention 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  57 

of  the  family's  shame.  It  was  the  first  time  it  had  beei^ 
spoken  of  so  openly. 

"You  shudn't  ought  to  say  such  things,"  murmured  Mrs. 
Fuller. 

"Why  not,  since  everybody  knows  'em?  And  it's  time  as 
summat  wur  done  as  well  as  said." 

"We  can  do  naun." 

"We  can  maake  Robert  know  as  how  we've  had  enough  of 
his  ways;  either  he  can  mend  'em,  or  he  can  go  off  to  whur 
we're  clear  of  the  splash  of  his  muck." 

"If  Bob  leaves  this  plaace,"  broke  in  Clem,  "reckon  he'll  go 
straight  to  the  bad." 

"Hoald  your  tongue,  Clement,"  said  Mary,  "as  if  this  wurn't 
some  of  your  doing,  wud  your  helping  and  sticking  by  him." 

"If  I  wur  you,  my  boy,"  said  Jim,  "you'll  kip  a  little  furder 
off  that  brother  of  youm.  It's  like  one  bad  root  in  a  sack, 
that'll  rot  the  lot  if  you  give  it  time." 

"I'm  sure,  Maaster,  I  wish  as  you'd  git  shut  of  Bob,"  con- 
tinued Mary,  "you've  no  notion  how  their  talk  goes  up  at  the 
Street.  It  aun't  seemly  to  kip  on  a  chap  wot  gits  us  all  talked 
about.  If  Clem  married  Poll  Ebony  there'd  be  naun  to  com- 
pare .  .  .  and  it  aun't  as  if  Bob  wur  much  use  on  the  farm, 
always  out  from  his  tea  forrards,  and  caring  naun  if  we  goes 
to  the  Auctioneer's  next  week,  so  long  as  gipsy  Hannah  ull  let 
him  run  after  her.  Maudie  Pont  wur  a-telling  me  only  yes- 
terday as  how  she  saw  him  carrying  a  basket  of  her  beastly 
clothes-pegs  after  her  down  Salehurst  Lane.    A  valiant  sight!" 

"If  you  wudn't  shut  your  hearts  agaunst  him,  maybe  he'd 
mend,"  said  Mrs.  Fuller.  "We  all  know  as  he  loved  the  gals 
from  a  young  boy  upwards,  and  this  ull  just  pass  like  the 
rest,  if  you  doan't  fix  him  in  it  by  shutting  your  hearts." 

Mary  rejoined  with  a  sniff.  She  considered  that  in  this 
matter  Robert  took  after  his  mother,  for  there  was  beginning 
to  be  just  a  little  talk  in  the  village  about  the  frequent  visits 
of  certain  farmers  to  Bodingmares  now  Mrs.  Fuller  was  a 
widow.  Jim  was  silent  for  the  same  reason;  and  Clem,  also 
aware  of  the  situation,  took  advantage  of  the  lull  it  brought 
to  slink  away  to  bed. 


58  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

He  wished  Robert  would  come  home.  Apart  from  the  scandal 
of  his  absence  and  the  painful  knowledge  that  he  was  with 
Hannah  Iden,  he  badly  felt  the  want  of  companionship.  The 
big,  low  room  looked  desolate — the  candle  lit  so  small  a  corner, 
and  flung  so  many  shadows  in  comparison  with  the  comfort 
of  its  little  flame.  The  dark  sky  seemed  to  press  against  the 
windows — it  was  a  relief  to  take  the  candle  to  the  sill,  and  shed 
a  faint  red  glow  down  into  the  yard,  showing  the  cobbles  and 
the  midden  and  the  big  weather-eaten  door-posts  of  the  barns. 

Usually  Clem  felt  very  sleepy  at  night — hard  work  and  the 
fresh  air  made  of  him  between  nine  and  ten  a  groping  autom- 
aton, which  stumbled  out  of  its  clothes  and  was  asleep  al- 
most before  it  had  huddled  the  blankets  over  its  head.  But 
to-night  he  was  restless  and  unhappy.  He  did  not  want  to  lie 
still.  It  must  be  that  woman — drat  her!  He  wished  that  he 
had  never  met  her.  Why  had  she  upset  him  so?  Was  it  just 
because  she  had  shown  him  how  hard  and  cruel  love  can  be? 
He  had  looked  upon  love  as  all  soft  and  all  sweet,  and  here 
vvere  Robert  and  Hannah  showing  him  the  love  that  strikes 
and  burns  and  kills.  .  .  .  "Lor,  she  gives  me  the  shudders." 


§17 

However,  he  must  have  been  sleepier  than  he  thought,  for 
he  fell  asleep  while  he  was  saying  his  prayers,  and  woke  up 
to  find  himself  lying,  still  dressed,  in  a  heap  beside  the  bed. 
The  candle  was  burning,  so  he  could  not  have  slept  long,  but 
he  was  already  cold  and  stiff  with  the  draught  that  ran  along 
the  boards  from  under  the  door.  Footsteps  sounded  in  the 
house,  and  a  lifted  latch.  Robert  must  have  come  back.  The 
door  opened  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  leading  to  the  bedroom, 
but  no  one  came  up — instead  a  voice  called,  "Clemmy!"  It 
was  Polly's  voice. 

In  a  moment  he  was  up,  and  had  run  down  to  where  she 
stood  in  the  entrance  to  the  scullery.  He  was  hardly  awake, 
and  therefore  hardly  surprised  to  see  her  as  she  leaned  against 
the  doorpost.     Her  hair  and  clothes  dripped  with  the  rain 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  59 

which  he  could  now  hear  falling  with  a  steady  hiss  into  the 
yard. 

"Wot  is  it,  duckie?" 

"Oh,  Clem — I've  runned  away." 

Then  he  realized  how  strange  it  was  to  have  her  there  in 
the  middle  of  the  night,  and  his  sleepy  embrace  became  sud- 
denly awake. 

"Wot's  happened — wotVe  they  done?" 

"Oh — oh — oh,"  she  burst  into  tears.  Clem  put  his  arm 
around  her  and  guided  her  through  the  scullery  into  the 
kitchen,  where  a  few  red  gleeds  still  smouldered  on  the  hearth- 
stone.   He  sat  dowTi  on  a  chair  and  took  her  on  his  knee. 

"Wot  is  it,  my  lovey?    Tell  me  now.    Tell  Clem  about  it." 

"I  can't— it's  tar'ble.  It's  that  Betty  ...  and  Dad  .  .  ." 
She  sobbed  into  his  neck,  and  he  sat  there  silently,  rocking 
her  against  him,  while  bit  by  bit  her  tale  was  gulped  and 
stammered  out:  "A  tar'ble  row.  .  .  .  Alee,  he  wur  rude  .  .  . 
and  Betty  she  toald  Dad  I'd  brought  him  on,  and  as  I  wur 
as  thick  as  I  dare  wud  boys  .  .  .  and  Dad  he  knocked  me 
down  .  .  .  and  said  he'd  git  shut  of  me — I'd  given  him  trouble 
enough.  .  .  .  And  I  smacked  Betty's  faace — reckon  it  wur  all 
her  doing  .  .  .  and  Dad  he  threatened  he'd  lay  me  open,  so 
I  runned  and  locked  myself  in  .  .  .  and  he  comed  up,  and 
I  jumped  out  o'  the  winder  .  .  .  fell  and  cut  my  leg  .  .  .  it 
wur  all  her  doing  .  .  .  she's  bin  trying  to  git  shut  of  me  since 
the  New  Year  .  .  .  and  now  she's  a-done  it  .  .  .  and  I'm  glad 
I  smacked  her  faace." 

Clem  cherished  her  sorrowfully. 

"Reckon  you  can  never  go  back  after  now." 

"I  doan't  want  to  go  back — I  wudn't  go  back  if  she  caum 
on  her  knees  from  Orznash." 

"Not  to  Ellen's  baby?" 

"Oh,  adone-do,"  she  cried  fretfully — "wot's  the  sense  of  my 
thinking  of  Ellen's  baby  or  any  woman's  baby?  .  .  .  I've  my- 
self to  think  on,  and  wotsumdever  shall  I  do?" 

"Reckon  it's  fur  me  to  think  of  that." 

Something  in  his  patience  calmed  her,  and  she  nestled  up 
against  him,  quiet  as  her  heaving  breast  would  let  her  be. 


6o  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"I'm  glad  I  came  to  you,  Clem,  I  run  here  straight — I 
thought  as  maybe  you  wum't  all  in  bed  yet ;  but  my  leg  maade 
me  go  slow." 

"I  wur  disremembering  your  pore  leg,  duckie.  Let  me  see 
it " 

They  stooped  their  heads  together  into  the  firelight,  and 
she  pulled  down  her  stocking  which  was  caked  with  blood  and 
dirt.  "Reckon  some  glass  fell  into  the  yard  when  I  bruck 
the  winder,  and  I  jumped  on  it." 

The  cut  was  long,  but  not  very  deep.  Clem  fetched  water 
from  the  scullery,  and  then  went  upstairs  for  his  three  white 
handkerchiefs.  Polly  was  shocked  at  such  a  use  for  the  linen 
that  made  it  glorious  for  Clem  to  wipe  his  forehead  in  Church 
on  Sunday — she  would  have  torn  off  the  hem  of  her  ignoble 
petticoat.  But  he  was  firm,  and  not  too  polite  to  tell  her  that 
nothing  of  hers  was  clean  enough  for  bandaging. 

Polly  leaned  back  in  the  chair  while  Clem  knelt  at  her  feet, 
and  when  he  had  finished  tying  his  clumsy  knots,  he  crouched 
down  beside  her,  resting  his  head  against  her  knee.  For  some 
moments  they  did  not  speak.  Her  sobs  were  quiet  now,  and 
he  was  busy  with  many  preoccupations. 

"Is  Bob  upstairs?"  asked  Polly,  at  a  sudden,  restless  move- 
ment of  his  head. 

"He  aun't." 

"Then  can't  we  stop  here  together  till  he  comes  in?" 

"You're  tired,  girl.  You  shud  ought  to  go  to  bed.  Let  me 
taake  you  up  to  mother — she'll  maake  room  fur  you,  surelye." 

"Clem,  wull  your  mother  let  me  stop  here?" 

"She  mun  let  you  stop." 

"But  your  sister  and  your  brother?" 

"Doan't  vrother  about  'em.  We'll  hear  to-morrow  wot  they 
say." 

Polly  began  to  cry  again. 

"I  doan't  want  to  hear  wot  they  say — reckon  it'll  be  naun 
good.  They  woan't  let  me  stop.  How  shud  they,  seeing  as 
my  own  faather  woan't  kip  me?  They  doan't  hoald  wud  me 
nor  wud  you  loving  me  .  .  .  they'll  send  me  off  .  .  .  and 
wotsumdever  shall  I  do?" 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  61 

"They  woan't  send  you  off."  He  put  his  arm  round  her 
and  gently  pulled  her  off  her  chair  to  the  floor  beside  him. 
They  crouched  together  on  the  rag  mat,  and  for  a  moment 
held  each  other  closely,  cheek  to  cheek,  their  hearts  beating 
together.  Her  hea\'y  heart-beats  seemed  to  break  up  and 
stifle  him — he  felt  a  queer  suffocation  in  his  breast. 

"Reckon  we  mun  git  married,  Poll — wudout  waiting  any 
longer." 

"Oh,  Clemmy " 

"I've  got  near  thirty  paound  put  by,  and  maybe  when  Jim 
knows  it  and  finds  you're  on  the  loose  lik  this,  hell  give 
over." 

"And  if  he  doan't " 


"We'll  have  to  manage  wudout  him,  surelye." 

"How'll  we  do  that?" 

"Somehows.  Anyway,  it's  mother's  business  too,  and  reckon 
we'll  git  araound  mother  easier  than  Jim." 

She  crept  closer  to  him,  and  his  arms  once  more  came  round 
her,  meeting  behind  her  back.  He  slowly  pulled  her  against 
him,  his  eyes  fixed  lipon  her  tired,  soft  mouth,  drooping  open 
like  a  child's  who  has  been  hurt  and  craves  for  tenderness. 
Then  suddenly  he  took  fire,  and  his  ovsm  mouth  closed  upon 
it.  He  held  her  against  him  with  a  strength  that  seemed 
to  hurt  them  both.  All  his  body  felt  bruised  as  he  held  her 
to  it.  At  last  she  cried,  "Doan't,  Clemmy,  doan't!"  But  he 
only  held  her  more  tightly.  She  struggled,  but  he  did  not 
care — her  resistance  gave  him  a  queer  delight.  .  ,  .  He  was  a 
man,  loving  her  like  a  man  at  last.  "Don't  be  afraid  of  love. 
,  .  ,  I  could  teach  you  to  love,  little  hedgehog,  ...  I  loves 
Romanly." 

There  she  stood,  with  all  her  wicked  draggled  feathers,  like 
an  image  in  the  lane  ,  .  .  the  hard  stone  in  love's  heart. 

He  suddenly  released  Polly,  and  she  seemed  miles  away.  He 
crouched  on  his  heels  before  her  on  the  rag  mat,  his  cheeks 
burning  with  shame. 

"Wot's  the  matter,  Clemmy?" 

"Forgive  me," 

"Wot  fur?" 


62  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

''Fur  being  rough." 

"That's  naun,  my  dear." 

"I've  loved  you  cruel  instead  of  kind." 

"You  dudn't  love  me  cruel.    Doan't  talk  so  straange." 

"I  dud — I  loved  you  just  lik  she  loves  Bob." 

"I  dunno  wot  you  mean." 

She  began  to  cry  again,  and  he  took  her  back  into  his  arms. 
This  time  her  warmth  and  weight  as  she  lay  heavily  like  a 
child  in  the  crook  of  his  elbow,  her  helplessness  and  surrender, 
roused  quite  a  different  response  in  him.  Her  abandonment 
both  physical  and  moral  to  his  power  and  mercy  stirred  in  him 
a  depth  of  compassion  and  protective  tenderness. 

"Doan't  cry.  Poll,"  he  soothed,  "doan't  cry,  my  duckie. 
It'll  soon  be  over  now — all  our  waiting  and  trouble," 

He  stood  up  and  pulled  her  to  her  feet. 

"Whur  are  you  taaking  me?" 

"To  mother.  She'll  let  you  sleep  along  of  her  till  it's  morn- 
ing. .  .  .  And  I'll  tell  her  as  I'm  marrying  you  this  day 
month." 

§i8 

By  the  evening  of  the  next  day  the  family  had  more  or  less 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  Clem  was  "growed  up."  Jim  and 
Mary  had  woken  that  morning  to  the  news  that  Polly  Ebony 
was  in  the  house,  having  run  away  from  Orznash,  and  had 
been  received  by  Mrs.  Fuller,  who  now  supported  Clem  in  his 
insane  resolve  to  marry  her  without  delay. 

Elizabeth  had  been  won  over  by  the  persuasions  of  Clem  and 
Polly,  sitting  on  her  bed  in  the  darkness  for  nearly  an  hour — 
by  the  plight  of  poor  little  Polly,  ragged  and  soiled  and  home- 
less— by  the  love  of  these  children  which  answered  the  day- 
spring  that  was  beginning  to  visit  her  own  heart.  Five  months 
of  widowhood  had  brought  a  strange  flowering  to  Elizabeth. 
Once  more  she  had  learned  to  sit  and  watch  the  sunset  like  a 
girl,  to  breathe  in  the  first  scent  of  spring  on  the  February 
wind.  Hopes  that  had  lain  asleep  and  half  stifled  for  twenty- 
three  years  now  began  to  stir  and  whisper,  and  these  the  love 
of  Clem  and  Polly  now  called  out  of  their  graves. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  63 

"Reckon  it's  true,"  said  the  mother,  "as  they're  naun  but 
two  children.  But  children  can  love,  surelye,  and  these  two 
have  loved  faithful  sinst  they  got  acquainted  three  year  agone. 
Let  Clem  have  the  keeping  of  Polly,  and  you'll  see  as  he  woan't 
be  a  liddle  boy  no  longer." 

"Clem's  more  of  a  boy  than  most  lads  of  his  age,"  said 
Jim. 

"I  aun't,"  said  Clem,  "or  I  wudn't  be  courting." 

"And  wot  are  you  going  to  kip  your  wife  on?" 

"I'll  wark,  saum  as  I  do  now,  and  I've  saaved  more'n  thirty 
paound  fur  the  furnishing." 

This  was  news  to  the  elder  brother,  and  did  not  fail  to  im- 
press him. 

"Wot!     You've  saaved  it  out  of  your  waages?" 

"Surelye." 

"Even  when  poor  faather  wur  paying  you  five  bob  a  week?" 

"I  saaved  half  a  crownd  then." 

"And  he's  loanst  me  four  paound  since  October,"  broke  in 
Robert,  "or  he'd  have  saaved  more." 

"I  doan't  doubt  it,"  said  Jim  sarcastically.  But  Clem  threw 
a  grateful  look  at  his  brother.  Robert's  championship  might 
do  more  harm  than  good,  still  it  was  comforting  to  feel  that 
Bob  was  on  his  side. 

"Thirty  paound  woan't  furnish  a  house  nowadays,"  said 
Mary. 

"It'll  furnish  all  they  want,"  insisted  Mrs.  Fuller;  "they 
doan't  expect  to  settle  in  Buckenham  Pallis." 

"You  can't  live  on  furniture,"  said  the  practical  James, 
"and  even  if  you  stop  on  as  hand  at  Bodingmares,  thirteen 
shillun  a  week  woan't  give  the  two  of  you  bread  to  eat,  and 
I  can't  run  to  more." 

"You  wur  talking  last  week  of  gitting  a  gal  fur  the  chicken," 
said  Clement  boldly;  "why  doan't  you  set  Polly  to  look  after 
the  chicken?  You'll  be  biiound  to  git  somebody,  wud  all  them 
new  Wyandottes.  Polly  knows  fowls,  and  did  valiant  wud  'em 
at  Orznash." 

"I  know  calves  too,"  said  Polly,  wishing  her  terror  of 
Clem's  relations  would  let  her  voice  sound  above  a  whisper. 


64  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"It'll  have  to  be  pigs  and  dairy  as  well,  fur  the  gal  I  git," 
said  James. 

"Then  you'll  be  baound  to  give  her  seven  shillun  a  week  and 
her  board,  and  Polly  ull  do  it  wudout  board.  I'll  answer  to 
kip  the  two  of  us  on  twenty  shillun  a  week  and  a  house." 

"And  whur's  the  house?  I've  got  but  the  one  they  call 
Pookwell,  and  the  Bantony  man's  in  that." 

"You  can  git  shut  of  him.  He  pays  but  two  shillun  a  week, 
and  you'll  be  saaving  my  board.  Reckon  I  eat  more'n  two 
shillun  a  week." 

"Reckon  you  do,"  said  Mary,  "reckon  you  eat  twelve.  You'll 
have  to  be  unaccountable  less  greedy  if  you  set  to  kip  yourself 
and  a  wife  on  twenty." 

"Why  not  Clem  and  Polly  stop  on  here?"  said  Mrs.  Fuller, 
"they  cud  have  the  room  where  Clem  and  Bob  is  now,  and 
Bob  cud  go  in  woid  Jim." 

"You  talk  as  if  it  wur  all  settled,"  said  Jim,  "but  it  aun't. 
It  aun't  sensible  as  Clem  shud  marry  at  his  age.  He's  but  a 
boy;  I'm  maaster  here,  and  he  can't  git  married  wudout  I 
let  him." 

However,  though  no  further  advance  was  made  that  day, 
fresh  ground  was  gained  on  the  next  and  the  next.  Jim  was 
kind-hearted  in  the  main,  and  he  felt  he  could  not  turn  out 
Polly  to  fend  for  herself,  nor  could  he  force  her  to  go  back  to 
a  home  where  she  would  be  ill-used,  and  from  which  she  might 
again  be  driven.  Also  Jim  was  fond  of  his  young  brother 
Clem,  whose  hard  work  and  docile  nature  had  touched  his 
heart  through  their  service  to  the  farm.  Clem  was  just  that 
steady,  gentle  sort  of  chap  who  would  work  none  the  worse 
because  he  was  married,  nor  assert  his  independence  and  give 
himself  airs.  Of  course  he  was  over-young  to  settle  down,  but 
he  was  quiet  enough  to  be  trusted,  and  he  certainly  was  in  love 
with  Polly.  The  mating  with  Orznash  was  a  blow  to  the  self- 
esteem  of  Bodingmares.  But  had  not  Robert  long  ago  scotched 
that  self-esteem,  so  that  it  could  no  longer  be  any  real  stiffen- 
ing? Robert  had  more  to  do  with  the  settlement  of  Clem's 
difficulties  than  might  have  been  thought.  Certainly  his 
championship  was  no  use.     But  the  fact  that  Bodingmares 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  65 

already  shared  in  a  measure  the  guilt  of  Orznash — that  men 
shot  out  their  lips  and  shook  their  heads  as  much  at  the  one 
as  at  the  other — weighed  with  Jim  in  his  balancings  and  pon- 
derings  of  considerations. 

"R.eckon  as  it's  only  fair  to  the  boy  as  he  shud  have  his  way," 
he  said  to  Mary.  "Bob's  gone  his  a  dunnamany  year,  and  not 
half  such  a  good  'un.  The  gal's  no  class,  but  she's  got  decent 
yeoman  blood  in  her,  and  it  aun't  her  doing  as  her  folks  have 
gone  wrong.  She's  a  stout  liddle  warker — helps  us  praaper  in 
the  house — and  quiet  as  a  mouse  and  respectful-spoken.  If 
she'd  tiiake  on  the  chicken  fur  seven  bob  a  week,  and  Clem 
taake  his  thirteen  wud  Pookwell  instead  of  board,  then  I  guess 
we'll  saave  money  on  the  business." 

"But  it  woan't  help  us  set  ourselves  up  wud  them  wot  spik 
agaunst  Bob  if  we  go  and  have  low  truck  on  Clem's  side  too. 
Two  rotten  eggs  doan't  maake  one  fresh  'un,  and  I  can't  see 
how  we're  to  mend  Bob's  bad  wud  Clem's  wuss." 

"Clem's  iiun't  wuss.    You  shudn't  ought  to  say  that." 

"But  he's  marrying  her — at  least  Bob  hasn't  had  the  wicked- 
ness to  do  that." 

"Bob's  is  different.  It  ud  be  shaame  if  he  married  her. 
But  Clem's  is  a  decent,  quiet  gal,  for  all  she  comes  from  a  bad 
hoame  and  aun't  bin  taught  clean  ways.  And  Clem's  a  decent, 
quiet  young  chap,  and  has  warked  hard  and  saaved  money. 
Reckon  we  shud  ought  to  let  him  have  his  way." 

"He's  naun  but  a  child." 

"I've  toald  you  he's  on  the  quiet  side,  and  that  doan't  count 
in  years.  He's  saaved  money,  too,  and  it  taakes  a  man  to  do 
that." 

§19 

With  Jim  converted  to  his  hopes,  Clem  had  nothing  more 
to  fear.  He  did  not,  however,  exactly  fulfil  his  promise  to 
Polly,  for  the  marriage  did  not  take  place  till  the  beginning  of 
June.  By  that  time  Clem  was  well  past  his  eighteenth  birth- 
day, and  Polly  had  learned  some  household  wisdom  as  the 
pupil  of  Mary  and  Mrs.  Fuller.  She  did  her  best  to  show  her 
gratitude  for  the  kindness  of  these  people,  whose  ordered  ways 


66  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

perplexed  her,  and  to  prove  her  fitness  to  be  Clem's  wife  and 
to  keep  the  little  house  of  Pookwell  for  him.  She  submitted 
to  Mary  when  she  told  her  that  only  the  "lowest  sort"  put 
china  and  glass  on  the  same  tray — she  learned  the  iniquity 
of  setting  the  pudding  on  a  table  which  had  not  been  cleared 
of  meat  and  vegetables,  of  making  a  bed  "all  of  a  lump,"  in- 
stead of  drawing  on  and  smoothing  each  sheet  and  blanket 
separately,  of  dusting  a  room  without  opening  the  window,  of 
laying  a  fire  without  first  drying  the  wood  in  the  oven.  She  was 
taught  to  cook,  too,  and  in  three  months  could  tackle  the 
dozen  of  dishes  which  make  up  a  yeoman's  fare.  From  Mrs. 
Fuller  she  learned  a  sweeter  knowledge — which  pudding  Clem 
liked  best,  how  much  milk  and  sugar  to  put  in  his  tea,  how 
to  make  him  cocoa  for  a  snack,  when  he  ran  in  to  her  during 
the  morning,  how  to  darn  his  socks  and  shirts,  and  to  polish 
his  boots  for  great  occasions. 

Polly's  family  left  her  more  or  less  alone.  Jim  and  Clem 
had  together  interviewed  Tom  Ebony  a  few  days  after  her 
arrival  at  Bodingmares.  But  Tom,  pipe  in  mouth,  had  little 
to  say  about  his  daughter.  Let  'em  keep  her  if  they  wanted 
her — he  was  shut  of  her.  She'd  given  him  trouble  enough. 
Did  young  Fuller  want  to  marry  her? — he  wished  him  joy. 
She'd  treated  his  own  wife  shameful,  and  she  wanted  a  lot 
of  looking  after.  Yes,  he  gave  his  consent — after  a  fair  warn- 
ing.   He  was  glad  to  see  her  so  well  settled. 

Jim  was  pleased  that  Ebony  did  not  care  to  play  his  part 
in  the  match.  It  made  things  better  for  Bodingmares  if  it 
was  known  that  no  social  link  with  Orznash  had  been  forged 
by  Clem  and  Polly.  The  attitude  he  found  best  to  assume 
was  one  of  charity — charity  to  the  girl  in  her  homeless  state, 
charity  to  the  love  of  the  young  people.  In  time  he  came  to 
see  himself  as  a  magnanimous  man — receiving  the  poor  orphan 
into  his  house,  bringing  her  up  with  his  own  family,  and 
finally  bestowing  her  in  respectable  marriage  on  his  younger 
brother,  whose  worldly  circumstances  he  had  advanced  so  as 
to  enable  him  to  meet  the  occasion. 

Some  of  the  village  saw  the  affair  in  the  same  light  as  Jim, 
and  he  was  praised  for  a  decent  chap.    Others,  however,  in- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  67 

sisted  on  regarding  him  as  the  victim  of  pressure.  Mrs.  Fuller 
had  approved,  and  she  was  joint  guardian  with  him  of  young 
Clement;  of  course,  he  couldn't  risk  losing  his  brother's  ser- 
vices on  the  farm — if  Clem  had  threatened  to  go  away,  Mus' 
Fuller  couldn't  very  well  help  himself  .  .  .  he'd  never  get 
such  another  hand  for  what  he  paid  the  lad. 

There  was  a  great  throng  of  people  at  the  wedding,  for 
everyone,  whether  they  had  come  to  show  their  approval  of 
Jim  Fuller's  conduct  or  to  enjoy  the  spectacle  of  his  discom- 
fiture, felt  curious  to  see  the  young  bride  and  bridegroom,  little 
more  than  children.  Polly  was  not  well  known  in  High  Tilt, 
which  she  haunted  only  occasionally;  Clem  was  known  to 
everj'^one  and  also,  it  was  now  discovered,  generally  liked.  True, 
he  was  queer  in  some  of  his  ways,  and  a  bit  common,  and 
stood  by  that  Bob  of  his  till  it  made  3^ou  think  he  couldn't 
be  quite  straight  himself,  but  everyone  declared  him  a  quiet, 
obliging,  stout-hearted  little  chap  whom  folk  couldn't  but  wish 
well. 

The  ceremony  took  place  in  High  Tilt  church,  which,  un- 
dismayed by  any  thoughts  of  "pore  Faather,"  Jim  and  Mary 
both  decided  to  be  more  aristocratic  and  suitable  for  a  yeo- 
man's wedding  than  the  Throws  chapel.  There  had  been  great 
anxiety  among  the  more  responsible  Fullers  as  to  who  was  to 
give  the  bride  away.  Tom  Ebony  might  have  done  it,  but  Jim 
felt  that  Polly  was  best  as  an  orphan,  rescued  from  ignoble 
surroundings  by  Jim  Fuller  of  Bodingmares.  Besides,  Tom 
had  taken  his  Betty  and  her  child  for  a  fortnight  to  Brighton, 
and  would  not  be  available  on  the  only  date  that  fitted  nicely 
between  the  hay-making  and  the  sheep-shearing.  So  Polly, 
having  no  other  kinsman,  was  given  away  by  Dunk  of  Shoys- 
well,  who  considered  a  certain  relationship  established  by  the 
fact  that  he  had  bought  roots  from  Orznash  for  a  dunnamany 
years,  and  had  always  said  as  Ebony's  roots  wur  good  roots 
no  matter  wot  other  folkses  might  say  of  his  goings-on.  The 
best  man  was,  unfortunately,  Robert — Clem  had  insisted  on 
having  him,  with  an  emphasis  of  ingratitude  which  disgusted 
Jim.  Robert  with  his  sensual  face  and  roving  blue  eye,  with 
his  thick  oiled  quiff  and  little  clipped  moustache,  with  his 


68  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

swagger  and  his  check  breeches,  would  spoil  the  look  of  the 
wedding — he  would  bring  the  shame  of  Bodingmares  into  the 
foreground  from  which  Jim  had  so  successfully  banished  the 
shame  of  Orznash. 

Robert  was  now  once  more  difficult  and  moody.  That  burst 
of  animal  spirits  and  animal  strength  had  died  down  in  the 
spring.  He  seemed  to  have  lost  confidence  in  himself.  Clem 
wondered  how  Hannah  was  behaving,  but  Bob  seemed  to  be 
with  her  as  much  as  usual.  Was  it  possible  that  he  was  sorry 
for  his  brother's  approaching  marriage,  for  the  breaking  up 
of  that  comradeship  which  of  late  months  he  had  hardly 
seemed  to  value.  It  did  not  seem  so,  for  Robert's  attitude 
towards  Clem's  luck  was  a  delightful  one  of  sympathy  and 
enthusiasm — and  he  had  bought  him  a  beautiful  silver-plated 
cruet,  quite  the  most  handsome  present  the  young  couple  had 
received. 

When,  on  the  wedding  day,  after  his  usual  morning's  work, 
Clem  went  upstairs  to  clean  himself  and  dress  for  the  cere- 
mony, he  found  Robert  in  the  bedroom,  already  dressed  in 
his  wedding  garments,  but  in  a  scarcely  bridal  attitude,  for  he 
sat  bolt  upright  on  a  chair  beside  his  bed  with  a  large  Bible 
on  his  knees. 

"Hallo!  Wot's  happened?"  said  Clem,  tearing  himself  out 
of  his  corduroys. 

"Summat  tar'ble." 

"Wot's  that?" 

"I've  had  a  warning." 

"Out  of  the  Bible?  Wot  are  you  a-doing  wud  it,  Bob? 
You're  a  middling  queer  chap." 

"I  saw  it  a-lying  there — I  found  it  when  I  wur  a-getting 
out  my  shirts,  and  I  says  to  myself,  'Let's  see  wot  it's  got  to 
say.'  So  I  opened  it,  as  they  do,  and  it  said,  'It's  a  tar'ble 
thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  living  God." 

"Well,  wot  of  it?    You  can't  go  reading  the  Bible  lik  that." 

"That's  the  praaper  way  to  read  it — then  it  tells  you  things." 

"I  never  heard  of  a  more  outlandish,  heathen  notion.  Reckon 
it's  wot  folkses  dud  a  dunnamany  years  agone,  when  nobody 
had  any  know  or  sense." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  69 

*'Doan't  you  go  telling  me  as  I  aun't  got  no  sense." 

"I  never  said  it.  I  only  say  as  it  aun't  a  sensible  thing 
to  do." 

"You  think  you  know  a  lot  about  religion  just  because 
you're  going  to  be  married  in  the  Parish  church.  The  church 
can't  do  naun  fur  you,  but  the  Bible  can — the  Bible's  a  Good 
Book.  Listen  here,  I  opened  it  agaun,  and  it  said,  'They  shall 
cry.  but  I  shall  not  hear.'  " 

"But,  Bob " 

"Hoald  your  tongue.  You  doan't  understand  naun  about 
religion  if  you  doan't  see  the  Finger  of  God  plain  here.  I 
tell  you  I  doan't  care  naun  fur  your  parish  church — my  re- 
ligion's the  Bible,  saum  as  my  faather's  wur." 

"But,  Bob,  I  dudn't  know  as  you  had  any  religion." 

"Thur  you  go,  as  I  said,  mocking  and  disbelieving  my  re- 
ligion because  it  aun't  the  saum  as  yourn." 

Clem  swallowed  the  retort  on  his  lips.  The  bridegroom 
and  best  man  must  not  quarrel  on  a  matter  of  theology 
just  before  the  wedding;  besides,  poor  Bob  looked  so  abject 
and  scared.  Clem  took  the  Bible  into  his  hands  and  opened 
it  at  random: 

"Thur,  it  says,  'Three  bowls  made  like  unto  almonds,  with 
a  knop  and  a  flower  in  one  branch' — wot  d'you  maake  of 
that? — it's  naun." 

"It  woan't  answer  you,  because  you  disbelieve,  but  it'll 
answer  me.  Give  it  me  here — no,  kip  it — put  it  away — I 
mun't  scare  myself  wuss." 

When  the  two  young  men  were  ready  they  went  down  to  the 
four-wheeled  cab  which  was  waiting  to  take  the  bridegroom's 
party  to  church.  Jim  had  rigidly  followed  the  local  etiquette, 
even  to  the  point  of  sending  Polly  for  the  night  to  Shoyswell, 
so  that  she  should  be  brought  to  the  ceremony  by  her  "father." 
Jim  and  Mrs.  Fuller  sat  facing  the  horse,  and  Mary  with  her 
back  to  it.  Bob  climbed  in  beside  her,  and  Clem  was  going 
to  take  his  place  on  the  box  when  Jim  suddenly  realized  that 
it  would  be  more  seemly  for  the  bridegroom  to  ride  inside. 
So  Bob  had  to  go  up  beside  the  coachman,  much  to  his  own 
annoyance  and  Clem's  vexation. 


70  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

The  bride  had  already  been  waiting  at  the  church  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  all  the  clocks  at  Shoyswell  being  fast.  Clem  at 
first  hardly  recognized  her  in  her  dress  of  bright  saxe  blue 
with  cream  lace  trimmings.  She  had  done  up  her  hair,  too, 
which  gave  her  an  odd,  grown-up  appearance.  It  was  only 
when  she  turned  her  eyes  to  him  with  a  look  that  had  grown 
in  them  of  late — a  queer  look  of  appeal  and  submission,  lit 
with  a  flame — that  he  seemed  to  recognize  his  own  little  Polly, 
the  black  lamb  of  Orznash,  now  to  be  taken  upon  his  shoulders. 
She  put  her  hand  into  his  arm  as  they  walked  up  the  aisle, 
the  whole  party  together,  and  he  pressed  it  tenderly  against 
him  in  its  tight  kid  glove. 

He  had  forgotten  to  put  on  his  own  gloves,  and  the  first 
part  of  the  ceremony  was  almost  obliterated  by  his  earnest 
attempts  to  do  so.  He  decided  to  be  content  with  one — after 
all,  it  was  almost  impossible  to  hold  a  small  object  like  a 
ring  with  gloves  on.  Both  he  and  Polly  had  studied  the  mar- 
riage service  very  carefully,  so  that  neither  of  them  made  any 
mistakes,  though  every  now  and  then  Polly  threatened  to 
become  speechless.  Mus'  Brackpool,  the  Rector,  galloped  them 
through  their  vows,  and  soon  they  were  holding  the  big  splayed 
ends  of  his  stole  while  he  irrevocably  gave  them  to  each  other. 

It  was  all  very  quiet  and  very  quick.  Clem  liked  the  priest's 
soft  gabbling  voice — so  unlike  the  accustomed  voice  of  prayer 
at  High  Tilt  chapel — but  the  rest  of  the  family  were  annoyed 
because  they  could  not  find  their  places  "wud  him  muttering 
lik  that,"  and  Robert  missed  the  bit  about  Abraham,  to  which 
he  had  been  especially  looking  forward.  Altogether  they  were 
rather  disappointed  in  the  resources  of  the  parish  church,  for 
after  the  ceremony  the  organist  lost  his  place  in  Mendelssohn's 
Wedding  March,  and  Clem  led  his  bride  down  the  aisle  in  a 
naked  silence. 

The  ceremony  had  been  so  quick  that  the  bridegroom's 
coachman  had  not  yet  come  back  from  his  refreshment  at  the 
Royal  George,  and  Clem  and  Polly  had  to  wait  for  two  or 
three  minutes  in  the  scent  of  a  warm,  spattering  June  shower 
while  he  was  fetched  back  to  his  duties.  The  congregation 
crowded  out  and  round  them,  and  those  who  had  waited  out- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  71 

side  in  the  churchyard  assaulted  them  with  confetti.  A  thou- 
sand coloured  disks  fluttered  in  and  out  of  the  shining  rain, 
and  spangled  the  blue  of  Polly's  dress  and  the  black  wool  of 
Clem's  hair.  They  were  too  shy,  too  bewildered  to  defend 
themselves,  but  dipped  their  heads  together  as  they  stood  hand 
in  hand,  and  giggled  as  the  fluttering  rainbow  blinded  them. 

"Here's  luck  to  you,  little  brother!"  and  Hannah  Iden  sud- 
denly pushed  her  way  to  the  front  with  her  cousin  Darius 
Ripley,  and  threw  a  handful  of  rice  in  his  face. 

The  rice  was  different  from  the  confetti — it  hurt  and  stung. 
Clem  ducked  away  from  her,  and  Hannah  laughed. 

"I've  frightened  the  pretty  bridegroom — but  then  I  knew 
he  was  easily  frightened.    I've  frightened  him  before." 

For  a  moment  she  stood  in  front  of  him,  swaying  against 
Darius,  whose  arm  was  round  her  waist.  Then  to  his  horror 
Clem  realized  that  Bob  was  coming  forward  to  speak  to  her, 
pushing  his  way  through  Fonts  and  Dunks  and  Peppers  and 
Shovels.  .  .  .  Bob  did  not  care  for  anyone,  he  would  speak  to 
her  before  them  all. 

But  she  did  not  wait  for  him.  She  laughed  again,  flinging 
back  her  head  against  Darius's  shoulder,  and  then  she  turned 
and  ran  off,  still  laughing,  with  the  neat  little  gipsy  man  be- 
side her. 

For  a  dreadful  moment  Clem  thought  that  Robert  would 
go  after  them,  but  the  crowd  swaying  round  and  knotting  to 
condemn  her,  thronged  him  back  into  the  porch;  and  the  next 
moment  the  coachman  arrived,  running  desperately,  and  show- 
ing himself  a  coachman  only  to  the  waist,  below  which  he  was 
a  labourer  in  corduroys  and  clay-thickened  boots. 

The  Fullers  and  Dunks  piled  into  the  first  cab,  leaving  as 
many  as  possible  to  follow  in  the  other.  Polly  sat  on  Clem's 
knee,  very  quiet  and  scared,  and  sticky  in  her  thick  dress  and 
the  hot,  tight  clasp  of  her  bridegroom's  arm. 

§20 

A  large  company  sat  down  to  the  wedding  breakfast  at 
Bodingmares.    It  was  laid  in  the  dining-room,  which  was  not 


72  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

■used  above  once  or  twice  a  year,  except  as  a  waiting-room 
for  those  more  genteel  visitors  who  sometimes  fetched  their 
own  eggs  and  butter  from  the  farm.  The  walls  were  green — 
unfortunately,  quite  a  different  green  from  the  serge  curtains 
looped  across  the  window — and  adorned  with  cases  of  stuffed 
birds.  There  was  also  a  coloured  picture  of  Queen  Victoria, 
an  engraving  of  Frith's  railway  station,  and  one  or  two  Ger- 
man prints  of  fat  children  and  angels.  The  window  was 
crammed  with  plants,  mostly  ferns  and  cactus,  which  tempered 
still  further  the  greenish  light  that  filtered  between  the  cur- 
tains. A  dining-room  was  a  distinction  owned  by  few  of  the 
neighbouring  farms,  and  gave  an  almost  manorial  dignity  to 
Bodingmares. 

The  table  nearly  filled  the  room,  and  the  guests  had  to 
squeeze  carefully  round  it  to  their  places.  In  the  middle  was 
the  wedding-cake,  masterpiece  of  a  Bulverhythe  confectioner, 
who  had  also  supplied  tarts  and  jellies  and  meatpies  and  wine. 
But  in  spite  of  the  two  decanters  full  of  a  pale  shade  of 
antipodal  burgundy,  the  teapot  still  dominated,  towering  over 
concentric  rings  of  teacups.  Local  trade,  also,  had  not  been 
entirely  shoved  out  by  the  Bulverhythe  interloper,  for  plates 
of  tinned  salmon  and  tinned  lobster  from  the  High  Tilt  gro- 
cery stores  quenched  even  the  flaming  colours  of  the  jellies 
and  tarts. 

It  was  nearly  five  minutes  before  everyone  was  seated.  At 
one  end  of  the  table  sat  Jim  Fuller,  the  Maaster,  with  his 
mother  at  one  elbow  and  his  sister  at  the  other.  At  the  oppo- 
site end  the  little  bride  and  bridegroom  squeezed  shyly  to- 
gether and  eyed  the  display.  Down  the  sides  piled  farmers  and 
their  families — Pont  of  Udiam,  Willard  of  Boarsney,  Dunk  of 
Shoyswell,  Cox  of  Haiselman's,  Fix  of  Little  London,  and 
Pepper  of  Weights — the  latter  a  widower,  and  as  close  as  he 
could  to  Elizabeth  Fuller,  with  her  soft  throat  and  face,  and 
her  eyes  that  were  wide  and  young  under  her  fading  hair. 
There  were  also  one  or  two  friends  from  Bulverhythe,  linked 
with  the  family's  town  days.  Among  them  was  the  confec- 
tioner who  had  supplied  the  meal,  and  his  daughter  Mabel. 
They  contrasted  rather  sharply  with  their  neighbours — Arthur 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  73 

Powlard  in  his  town  suit  and  soft  collar  among  all  the  black 
coats  and  chokers,  Mabel  in  her  smart  coat  and  skirt,  and  little 
hat  on  one  side,  among  all  the  silk  blouses  and  lockets  and 
big  straw  hats  trimmed  with  daisies. 

She  was  a  pretty  girl,  and  would  have  liked  to  flirt  with 
Robert,  who  sat  beside  her.  But  the  best  man  was  in  a  state 
of  restless  gloom,  and  had  few  words  to  bestow  apart  from  the 
thoughts  that  followed  Hannah  Iden  as  she  ran  off  laughing 
with  Darius  Ripley's  arm  round  her  waist.  The  picture  of 
her  rose  between  Robert  and  the  invitation  of  IMabel's  lips, 
between  him  and  the  glories  of  the  table,  between  him  and 
the  younger  brother  whose  happiness  should  have  been  his 
to-day.  Ripley's  bold,  careless  hug  which  would  have  meant 
absolutely  nothing  with  any  High  Tilt  or  Salehurst  girl  at  a 
wedding,  was  full  of  suggestion  and  omen  in  the  case  of 
Hannah,  whom  no  man  touched  in  friendliness  or  jest.  "She 
wudn't  have  let  him  do  it,  if  she  wurn't  meaning  aught.  She's 
on  wud  that  liddle  gipsy  maaster — though  she  swore  to 
me " 

Mabel  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  big,  handsome  Fuller 
was  just  a  bumpkin. 

So  the  shadow  of  Hannah  Iden  lay  over  Clem's  wedding 
feast.  The  general  atmosphere  of  labour  and  silence  that 
affected  the  guests  was  not  due  entirely  to  the  shyness  of  the 
married  pair,  who  would  scarcely  open  their  mouths  except 
to  eat  their  wedding  cake.  The  gloom  seemed  rather  to  radiate 
from  Robert,  where  he  sat  with  his  hands  ungraciously  in  his 
pockets,  staring  at  the  food  on  his  plate  which  had  never  been 
suffered  to  lie  there  so  long.  Clem  watched  him  anxiously — 
he  guessed  his  trouble,  he  knew  that  he  was  jealous.  Of  course, 
Hannah  might  have  been  free  with  Ripley  just  to  whip  up 
Bob's  emotions  and  spur  him  to  a  more  sacrificial  wooing  .  .  . 
but  it  was  just  as  likely  that  she  had  got  tired  of  him,  and 
turned  to  a  man  of  her  own  people  .  .  .  she  had  certainly 
looked  very  spitefully  at  Clem  ...  his  face  still  seemed  tO' 
tingle  with  the  handful  of  stinging  rice  she  had  flung  in  it. 

The  Australian  burgundy  was  potent  enough  at  last  to  put 
a  little  life  into  Robert.    He  hated  the  rough,  f^our  taste  of  it 


74  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

on  his  tongue,  but  it  had  the  powers  of  an  unaccustomed  drink, 
and  in  time  the  vision  of  Hannah  blurred  a  little.  When  he 
found  this  out  he  drank  more,  and  was  able  to  return  thanks 
quite  genially  for  the  bridegroom's  mother  when  her  health 
was  proposed.  Dunk  of  Shoyswell  spoke  for  the  bride,  and 
Clem  was  left  in  the  coils  and  tangles  of  his  own  speech,  still 
further  and  most  horribly  confused  by  half  a  glass  of  wine. 
However,  everybody  wished  him  well,  and  received  his  remarks 
with  a  noisy  good  will  in  which  they  were  most  of  them  lost. 
He  sat  down,  feeling  very  scared,  but  comforted  by  the  sight  of 
Bob  laughing  loudly  at  him. 

The  honeymoon  being  limited  to  thirty-six  hours  it  was 
imperative  not  to  lose  any  of  it,  and  as  soon  as  the  healths 
had  been  drunk,  Clem  asked  Jim  if  he  and  Polly  might  go 
at  once  to  Pookwell.  There  was  no  reason  why  they  should 
not — the  days  were  past  when  weddings  worked  up  through 
hours  of  eating  and  drinking  to  the  climax  of  a  dance.  Most 
of  the  guests  were  beginning  to  feel  sleepy  after  their  wine, 
the  table  was  once  more  dropping  into  silence,  and  Clem  was 
afraid  that  if  he  waited  he  would  see  the  shadow  of  Hannah 
Iden  fall  over  it  again. 

So  he  and  Polly  climbed,  this  time  mercifully  alone,  into 
the  old  cab  with  its  stuffy  smells  of  stable  and  leather,  and 
leaving  the  wedding  party  obscured  by  a  languidly  eddying 
cloud  of  confetti,  drove  solemnly  down  the  drive  and  along 
the  thirty  or  forty  yards  of  road  between  the  drive  gate  and 
Pookwell. 

But  though  the  cottage  was  so  near,  it  seemed  very  far  off 
when  they  were  left  together  on  the  doorstep,  and  the  cab  was 
grinding  and  clopping  its  way  back  to  the  inn.  A  clump  of 
yew,  blotted  against  the  side  wall,  hid  Bodingmares  three 
fields  away,  and  at  the  back  a  ring  of  alder  pierced  with  two 
aspiring  darts  of  Lombardy  poplars  shut  out  all  the  familiar 
tillage.  Only  in  front  the  little  house  lay  open  to  the  south- 
ward sun,  which  had  warmed  its  plaster  walls  to  the  brownish- 
yellow  of  a  well  stood  cheese.  Across  the  hedge  and  the  lane 
fields  of  tall,  unripe  com  sloped  to  the  marshes.  The  river 
Dudwell  crept  shining  at  the  foot  of  the  meadow  hills  of  Sock- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  75 

nersh,  where  the  black  oasts  stood  like  steeples,  and  the  pollard 
willows  swam  in  the  mirror  of  stormy  light.  The  same  light 
wavered  angrily  on  to  Clem's  face  as  he  lifted  it  from  his 
struggles  with  the  door  key.  Then,  as  he  flung  the  door  open, 
it  poured  over  him  into  the  house,  illuminating  the  steep  ridicu- 
lous little  staircase  that  shot  up  almost  from  the  doorstep  to 
the  floor  above. 

Polly  followed  him  in  with  a  queer  stiffness,  and  they  went 
into  the  kitchen  which  seemed  very  tidy  and  bare.  The  light, 
now  definitely  kindled  into  sunshine,  poured  over  the  scrubbed, 
deal  surface  of  the  table. 

"That'll  mean  more  rain,"  said  Polly. 

They  faced  each  other  awkwardly  across  the  strange  table, 
in  the  strange,  bare  room,  with  the  unfamiliar  pots  and  pans 
hanging  round  it,  and  all  the  new  china  on  the  dresser.  They 
looked  strange,  too — Clem  in  his  black  coat  and  high,  stiff 
collar,  and  Polly  with  her  tight  blue  dress  and  coiled  up  hair. 

"I  dudn't  marry  you  fur  you  to  talk  to  me  about  the 
weather,"  said  Clem  slowly  at  last. 

Then  suddenly  they  both  laughed,  and  he  ran  round  the 
table  and  took  her  in  his  arms. 

"Oh,  Clem,  it's  all  bin  so  straange,"  moaned  Polly. 

"But  it  aun't  straange  now." 

"No,  but  it's  bin  tar'ble  ...  all  the  company  .  .  .  and  you 
lik  a  straange  young  gentleman " 

"Is  this  how  you  go  on  wud  straange  young  gentlemen?" 

"No,  Clemmy,  not  now — but,  oh,  leave  them  pins  in  my 
hair." 

"I  doan't  lik  your  hair  all  piled  up — it  looks  furrin." 

"Now  I'm  married  I  mun't  have  it  hanging  down." 

"You  can  do  it  up  to-morrow,  when  folkses  are  about.  But 
now  thur's  only  you  and  me." 

Polly  let  him  caress  her,  submitting  to,  rather  than  accepting, 
his  love.  She  was  not  so  used  to  happiness  as  he,  and  still  felt  a 
little  scared  in  her  new  surroundings.  The  strange,  bare 
kitchen,  and  the  new  ardour  that  was  creeping  into  her  boy's 
voice  and  touch  both  made  her  ill  at  ease.  But  as  the  evening 
passed  her  sense  of  the  abiding  sameness  in  him  grew  and  cast 


76  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

out  fear — he  was  her  dear  Clemmy,  even  in  that  strange  house 
and  transmuted  by  passion.  His  sweetness  and  gentleness 
were  fundamental — a  deep  gratitude  stirred  in  her  heart,  mak- 
ing her  take  his  dark,  woolly  head  in  her  hands  and  kiss  it 
with  the  slow,  reverent  kisses  of  a  thankful  child,  and  then 
suddenly  find  herself  the  mother  with  that  head  upon  her 
breast. 

§21 

Three  fields  away  at  Bodingmares  Robert  watched  the  feast 
expire.  Traps  and  gigs  lurched  off  with  yeomen,  stragglers 
gossiped  round  the  door,  in  the  dining-room  the  guttered  meal 
grew  hard  and  stale.  The  kitchen  seemed  full  of  dirty  plates 
and  the  whisking  skirts  of  Mary  and  the  hired  girl.  Mary 
wished  to  goodness  the  men  would  go,  instead  of  hanging 
round  mother — then  she  could  begin  to  think  of  getting  straight. 
It  was  hardly  decent  to  see  them  like  that,  fooling  round  an 
eight  months'  widow.  It  was  a  pity  mother  didn't  see  it  her- 
self. .  .  . 

So  she  hurried  meaningly  to  and  fro  between  the  kitchen 
and  the  porch,  where  Mrs.  Fuller  stood  smiling  and  flushing 
as  she  spoke  to  Pepper  and  Cox.  Pepper  had  given  her  his 
wedding  buttonhole,  and  both  men  were  making  use  of  the 
licence  that  weddings  allowed.  Mary  was  shocked,  and  Robert 
himself  felt  a  little  disgusted.  His  mother  ought  to  remember 
that  she  was  the  mother  of  grown  up  sons.  .  .  .  Here  she  was 
actually  smiling  on  WTieelsgate  the  postman  when  he  came  up 
with  the  letters.  "Good  evenun,  Mus'  Wheelsgate.  I'm  un- 
accountable sorry  you  cudn't  be  at  the  wedding,  but  I'll  see 
if  thur's  a  bit  of  caake  left." 

This  was  too  much.  "It's  gitting  coald  fur  you,  Mother," 
said  Robert,  "you  mun't  be  out  in  the  swale  lik  this  at  your 
age." 

"Lor,  child!  I  haven't  come  to  an  age  when  a  June  swale 
ull  git  my  boans.  How  you  talk!  Howsumdever,  I  mun  go 
in  and  fetch  Mus'  Wheelsgate  his  caake." 

"It's  all  gone,"  shouted  Mary  from  the  passage. 

"That's  queer.    I  thought  I  saw  a  good  lump  on  the  taable. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 


i  t 


Howsumdever,  Clem  and  Polly  may  have  took  it  wild  'em, 
surely e.  I'm  sorry,  Mus'  WTieelsgate,  but  if  Clem's  got  it 
you  shall  have  a  bit  laater,  fur  we're  meaning  to  send  raound 
bits  to  friends — we've  got  dentical  liddle  boxes  wud  lace  on 
them  from  IMus'  Powlard.     You  shud  ought  to  see  them." 

For  one  of  the  few  times  in  their  lives  Mary  and  Robert 
exchanged  a  look  of  sympathy.  Mother  was  incorrigible — she 
needed  poor  faather  to  look  after  her.  Jim,  who  alone  had 
authority,  was  busy  in  the  yard.  All  they  could  do  was  to 
hang  uneasily  and  embarrassingly  round  her  and  her  friends 
till  at  last  the  men  went  off  and  Mrs.  Fuller  with  a  placid 
smile  turned  back  into  the  house. 

"There's  naun  lik  a  wedding  fur  pleasure,"  she  remarked. 

"Maybe,"  said  Mary,  "but  it's  a  pity  when  it  comes  too  soon 
after  a  funeral." 

Relieved  of  his  charge,  Robert  set  off  about  his  own  affairs. 
He  knew  that  he  ought  to  go  and  help  Jim  with  the  milking, 
but  he  felt  that  he  could  not  settle  down  to  work.  So  it  was 
the  women  who  had  to  change  quickly  into  their  oldest  gowns 
and  take  their  places  on  the  milking  stools,  while  Robert,  still 
in  his  wedding  finery,  walked  off  to  Blindgrooms. 

It  was  rather  early  to  be  sure  of  finding  Hannah,  but  her 
mother  would  be  there,  and  Robert  felt  that  he  would  not  be 
wasting  his  time  if  he  could  get  himself  into  the  old  woman's 
good  graces,  for  to  her  mother's  dislike  of  his  "gorgeousness" 
or  Gentilehood  he  attributed  Hannah's  occasional  withdrawals. 
But,  contrariwise,  it  was  the  daughter  and  not  the  mother  that 
he  found  in  the  big  dark  kitchen  of  Blindgroom.s.  It  was  an 
enormous  room,  probably  two  knocked  into  one  at  some  for- 
gotten date,  and  very  damp,  for  the  cottage  was  built  below 
the  level  of  the  road — one  went  down  to  it  by  a  moss-grown 
pathway  slanting  through  a  garden  of  thistles  and  derelict 
vegetables.  Hannah  was  busy  with  a  large  bundle  which  she 
was  tying  up  in  the  corner. 

"So  you've  come,  child,"  she  said  without  looking  round. 

"You  didn't  think  a  blasted  wedding  ud  kip  me  away." 

"Weddings  are  fine  things.     Did  you  dance?" 

"Not  II    We  doan't  dance  at  weddings." 


78  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"When  my  cousin  Yocky  Lovell  was  married  we  danced  till 
the  stars  went  out;  and  we  dances  at  funerals  too." 

"Wot  are  you  a-doing  wud  that  sack?" 

"I'm  packing  for  a  journey." 

"Where  are  you  going?"  Almost  a  falsetto  note  of  anguish 
came  into  his  voice.    Hannah  answered  quietly: 

"I'm  going  bikkening  into  the  hop  country." 

"Doan't  go  answering  me  in  that  outlandish  speech.  Tell 
me  wot  you  mean." 

"The  hop  country  is  Kent,  as  you  might  have  known  for 
yourself,  and  bikkening  in  our  outlandish  speech  is  selling 
clothes-pegs  to  Gentiles." 

"Nannie — doan't  go." 

He  had  come  swiftly  up  behind  her  and  put  his  arms  round 
her  as  she  knelt  fastening  the  mouth  of  her  sack*  She  pushed 
him  away. 

"Don't  come  troubling  me  now." 

"But  you  mun  tell  me — you  mun  answer  me — ^why  are  you 
going  away  lik  this?" 

"Haven't  I  been  away  before?" 

"Yes,  you  have,  and  be  hemmed  to  you.  But  this  is  all  of 
a  suddint." 

"It  ain't.    I  made  up  my  mind  last  week." 

"You  never  toald  me  naun." 

"Why  should  I  tell  you?    You  never  asked." 

"Doan't  you  belong  to  me?" 

"I  belongs  to  no  one." 

"Nannie,  you're  cruel — I  can't  maake  you  out.  You  let  me 
love  you  and  I'm  full  of  heaven,  but  in  between  whiles  you're 
no  more'n  a  lady  acquaintance.  You'd  think  to  hear  and  see 
you  now  as  we'd  never  bin  thick  in  our  lives." 

"I'm  not  one  of  your  Gentile  rawnees  who's  love  and  kisses 
all  day  and  half  the  night.  If  you  want  that  sort  of  thing 
you  shouldn't  have  taken  up  with  me.  I  love  when  I  feels 
like  it,  and  I  bet  I  give  you  more  to  remember  than  any  silly 
fat  girl  in  these  parts;  but  when  I  doesn't  feel  like  it  then  I 
doesn't  love,  and  I  expects  you  to  behave  yourself." 

"How  long  ull  you  be  away?" 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  79 

"Maybe  a  couple  of  weeks." 

"Who'll  you  be  travelling  with?" 

"I  shall  travel  alone." 

"Darius  Ripley  woan't  go  wud  you?" 

"Are  you  jealous,  gorgeous  Bob?" 

"Tell  me — tell  me  straight,  is  he  going  wud  you?" 

"He  is  not — as  I'd  have  thought  you'd  know;  I  travels 
alone.  But  Darius  has  his  cart,  and  sells  horses  to  Gentiles, 
and  the  roads  is  free  to  all  poor  people." 

"Nannie,  Nannie,  doan't  go  hitting  at  me  like  that.  I  can't 
abear  it.  Tell  me — ^promise  me  as  you  woan't  taake  up  wud 
Darius." 

He  could  keep  his  craving  hands  off  her  no  longer.  They 
came  down  on  her  shoulders,  and,  bending  her  back,  he  sor- 
rowfully and  passionately  kissed  her  mouth.  She  twisted  her- 
self out  of  his  grasp  and  scrambled  to  her  feet. 

"Leave  me  alone,  will  you?  I  won't  have  your  hands  on 
me.    You  ought  to  learn  how  to  treat  females." 

"You  let  Darius  put  his  arm  araound  you  at  the  wedding." 

"Darius  is  my  kinsman." 

"And  I'm  your  lover — which  is  more  than  kin." 

"It  ain't.  A  kinsman's  my  kinsman  ahvays;  a  lover's  my 
lover  only  when  I  choose.  Oh,  I  know  you  think  you've  bought 
me  like  a  mare,  to  keep  in  your  stable  and  have  out  when  you 
please.  That's  the  way  you  treat  your  owoi  females,  but  it 
isn't  the  way  to  treat  me,  my  gorgeous  one,  though  you're 
mortal  slow  at  learning  it." 

"Will  you  swear  to  me  as  you  only  let  Darius  hug  you  'cos 
he  was  kin?" 

Hannah  gazed  at  him  pityingly. 

"What  a  child  you  are!  I  likes  you  better  when  you're  a 
man." 

"Then  give  me  a  chance  of  being  a  man." 

"I'm  doing  my  poor  person's  best  to  learn  you  to  be  one." 

"By  driving  me  mad." 

"By  teaching  you  manners." 

"Reckon  my  manners  are  as  good  as  most  men's." 

"Your  manners  are  Gentile  manners,  child,  and  strike  a  bit 


8o  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

rude  to  a  Roman  female.  If  you  and  me  is  to  get  on  together 
you'll  have  to  learn  how  to  treat  me  in  a  polite  fashion." 

"Nannie — I'll  do  wotsumdever  you  like,  so  long  as  you  let 
me  love  you.  .  .  ." 

He  could  not  argue  with  her;  he  could  not  even  bargain 
with  her.  He  must,  as  he  realized  for  the  hundredth  time, 
take  her  on  her  own  terms,  since  she  would  come  to  him  on  no 
other. 

Her  eyes  softened.  His  hands  were  stretched  out  towards 
her  humbly,  but  the  impression  he  gave  was  of  vigour  and 
strength.  As  he  stood  there  opposite  her,  he  had  the  bulk 
and  beauty  of  a  young  god — or,  in  her  own  comparison,  a 
Gentile  prize-fighter,  a  cooroomengro. 

He  was  bigger  and  finer  than  any  of  her  own  men,  and  as 
she  had  never  had  anything  so  splendid,  so  adoring  and 
faithful,  she  could  afford  to  forget  that  she  had  never  had 
anything  so  stupid,  so  clownish  and  jealous.  She  moved  to- 
wards him  and  smiled.  She  made  no  gesture,  gave  no  invita- 
tion, but  he  knew  that  now  at  last  he  might  touch  her  un- 
rebuked.  In  a  moment  his  jealousy  was  forgotten,  his  appre- 
hension was  gone.  With  a  husky  laugh,  he  seized  her  and 
clasped  her  to  him,  and  her  hardness  seemed  to  melt  into  his 
passion  as  a  rock  melts  into  a  wave. 

§    22 

That  summer  was  good  to  Bodingmares.  Jim  was  justified 
in  all  his  ventures.  Not  that  these  had  ever  approached  reck- 
lessness, but  at  least  he  had  broken  out  of  the  rut  of  his 
father's  ways;  he  had  not  ploughed  grass,  but  he  had  in- 
creased his  hay  acreage,  and  he  had  been  fairly  bold  with 
catch-crops.  The  latter  had  especially  flourished,  and  Jim 
had  trifolium  and  Italian  rye  beyond  his  needs,  so  that  he 
found  himself  selling  to  other  farms. 

Apart  from  the  results  of  enterprise,  he  had  been  lucky 
in  those  ways  which  are  beyond  a  farmer's  contriving.  Sun 
in  the  right  month  had  prospered  his  hay;  his  corn,  though  a 
bit  stalky,  bore  well  in  the  ear,  and  his  hops  were  free  of  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  81 

blight  which  had  measled  them  for  two  years  running.  En- 
couraged on  every  side,  he  went  forward  to  bigger  adven- 
tures. He  engaged  a  new  hand — the  first  outside  help  that 
Bodingmares  had  had  since  James  Fuller's  lads  were  old 
enough  to  work.  This  man  came  with  an  excellent  character 
from  Hazel  Street  over  in  Kent,  where  he  had  worked  as  all- 
round  labourer  with  a  special  knowledge  of  horses.  Pook- 
well  being  occupied  by  Clem,  he  had  to  lodge  at  High  Tilt,  and 
tramp  a  mile  and  a  half  to  and  fro  every  day,  since  Robert 
refused  to  have  him  in  his  room ;  but  such  accommodation  was 
usual  in  a  district  of  small  landlords  and  no  building  enter- 
prise. 

The  plan  of  having  Clem  and  Polly  at  Pookwell  had  worked 
most  admirably.  Clem  was  anxious  to  prove  its  efficiency  by 
hard  work  and  sacrifice,  and  Polly,  eager  to  please  both  Clem 
and  Clem's  family,  "did  valiant  wud  the  chicken,"  and  cer- 
tainly saved  Jim  several  shillings  a  week.  It  was  rather  a 
strenuous  life,  and  did  not  give  the  young  couple  much  of  each 
other's  company;  but  neither  of  them  had  expected  anything 
different,  and  their  moments  together  between  sunset  and  sun- 
rise were  doubly  precious  in  view  of  the  day's  separation — 
and  even  the  day  had  its  broken  comradeship,  since  Clem 
always  ran  home  to  Pookwell  for  his  meals. 

Jim  was  highly  pleased  with  Clem  and  Polly,  though  he  did 
not  like  all  their  ways — Clem  seemed  too  readily,  he  thought, 
to  adapt  himself  to  a  common  labourer's  existence  after  the 
yeoman  glory  of  Bodingmares.  But  undoubtedly  they  were 
saving  him  money,  and  thus  helping  the  farm  in  spite  of  their 
common  ideas,  and  he  showed  his  appreciation  by  giving 
them  a  half-holiday  whenever  there  was  no  work  for  them  to 

do. 

Their  loyalty  and  docility  were  enhanced  by  the  opposing 
vices  in  Robert.  Robert  was  not  part  of  the  season's  progress, 
and  had  had  little  share  in  bringing  it  about.  For  the  early 
weeks  of  the  summer  he  had  worked  fairly  well,  though  he 
was  always  out  in  the  evening  when  the  widening  days  did  not 
necessarily  bring  work  to  an  end  at  supper  time.  But  after 
Clement's  wedding  he  had  seemed  to  go  "all  to  pieces."    He 


82  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

absented  himself  from  the  morning's  or  afternoon's  work  with- 
out excuse  or  apology.  His  temper  became  vile,  and  he  was 
occasionally  drunk.  Everyone  put  this  down  to  some  hitch 
in  his  friendship  with  Hannah  Iden.  Indeed,  gossip  of  rupture 
occasionally  came  up  from  the  village,  and  put  hope  into 
Jim's  heart.  But  if  any  rupture  did  actually  take  place — 
and  there  was  reason  to  think  that  something  of  the  kind 
had  really  happened  at  least  once — it  was  patched  up  again, 
and  Robert  was  received  back  into  slavery. 

The  affair  was  now  a  common  scandal,  and  Jim  occasionally 
found  backs  turned  on  him  in  the  market-place  or  the  public- 
house.  The  general  attitude,  however,  was  one  of  commisera- 
tion, which  for  some  reason  he  found  easier  to  bear.  In  the 
decent  saloon  bar  of  the  Royal  George,  or  of  the  Eight  Bells 
at  Salehurst,  where  yeomen  drank  a  solemn  glass  in  dignified 
fellowship,  Jim  would  expand  on  the  subject  of  his  brother's 
villainy,  his  black  ingratitude,  his  wickedness  towards  the 
dead.  .  .  .  "If  his  pore  faather  cud  see  him  now.  .  .  ." 

The  saloon  bar  voted  Mus'  Fuller  a  decent  chap  for  keep- 
ing Robert  at  Bodingmares — he  might  easily  get  shut  of  him. 
But  Clem's  wedding  had  given  Jim  a  taste  for  playing  provi- 
dence to  his  brothers,  and  he  liked  to  think  that  his  long 
suffering  was  all  that  stood  between  Robert  and  utter  down- 
fall. 

"I've  to  remember  my  pore  faather,"  he  said  to  Bream  of 
Little  Moat,  after  an  auction  at  Copt  Hall;  "fur  his  saake  I 
mun  stick  to  the  chap.  Besides,  wot  ud  he  do  if  I  got  shut  of 
him?  He'd  go  and  taake  up  wud  them  'Gyptians — I  know  it. 
Fur  tuppence  he'd  go  on  the  road  wud  that  baggage  and  her 
cart.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  tell  you,  maaster,  as  sometimes  I've  tar'ble 
presentations,  and  see  pore  Robert  selling  baskets  and  clothes- 
pegs  on  the  north  trade,  wud  all  his  self-respeck  a-gone  and 
busted." 

His  brother  was  not  as  grateful  as  he  might  have  been  for 
this  forbearance.  It  was  gammon  to  make  out  that  he — 
Robert — didn't  do  his  work  praaper.  He  hadn't  missed  a 
day  since  the  shearing,  and  the  only  reason  Jim  wasn't  satis- 
fied was  that  he  wanted  black  niggers  who'd  work  all  day  for 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  83 

nothing,  instead  of  honest  white  working  men  who  saved  their 
sweat  with  their  brains. 

Robert's  finances  were  now  in  a  horrible  state.  He  was  still 
working  off  old  debts  and  at  the  same  time  involving  himself 
in  new  ones.  He  had  owed  money  to  the  landlord  of  the 
Woolpack,  and  had  paid  him  off  only  to  entangle  himself  with 
the  landlord  of  the  White  Hart  up  at  Burwash.  Hannah  was 
not  his  only  source  of  extravagance — he  was  a  lavish  treater 
of  stray  acquaintance,  and  one  or  two  friendships,  otherwise 
in  danger  through  the  quarrelsomeness  of  his  disposition,  were 
maintained  on  a  basis  of  propitiatory  and  reconciliatory  drinks. 
He  also  played  billiards  and  the  noble  game  of  darts.  He 
liked  to  look  smart  and  well  dressed,  to  put  his  money  on  a 
winner,  to  read  the  evening  and  sporting  papers,  and  lose 
no  opportunity  of  proving  himself  a  Dog.  Besides,  he  was 
continually  having  to  placate  creditors  with  sums  on  account, 
or  even,  in  the  case  of  Porter  of  the  White  Hart,  to  pay  in- 
terest— a  hundred  and  fifty  per  cent,  of  Gentile  usury.  Beyond 
all  this  there  was  Hannah,  whom  he  liked  to  take  to  the  fair 
and  to  the  pictures,  for  whom  he  loved  to  buy  presents — 
shining  and  glowing  pieces  of  jewellery  or  stuff,  which  he  was 
generally  overcharged  for  by  shopkeepers  aware  of  his  eager- 
ness and  ignorance.  He  bought  her  a  diamond  ring  on  the 
instalment  system,  insisting  that  the  diamonds  must  be  real 
for  a  price  of  eight  pounds,  though  she  declared  that  the}^ 
were  not  and  that  she  knew  the  price  of  diamonds  as  a  lord 
had  once  offered  her  some. 

Unfortunately,  Robert  had  now  very  few  ways  of  adding 
to  his  wages.  Clem  was  no  longer  available  for  purposes  of 
borrowing,  and  he  lost  as  much  as  he  won  over  public-house 
games.  True,  he  could  have  gone  to  the  races  with  the  gipsies 
as  often  as  he  liked,  and  their  tips  were  generally  good.  But 
he  had  never  been  used  to  gambling  in  more  than  half-crowns, 
and  the  pounds  he  lost  frightened  him  more  than  he  was 
gratified  by  the  pounds  he  won.  Also  he  was  not  now  on 
the  best  of  terms  with  the  Ripleys  and  their  crew.  He  sus- 
pected them  of  jealousy  and  treachery.  He  would  not  take 
their  tips,  feeling  that  they  might  deliberately  mislead  him. 


84  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Darius  Ripley  was  in  love  with  Hannah;  he  was  sure  of  it. 
He  would  like  to  clear  Robert  out  of  the  way.  And  the  dread- 
ful part  of  it  all  was  that  he  knew  that  Hannah  was  being 
turned  against  him  by  the  very  scandal  that  his  love  for 
her  created.  She  had  taken  him  on  because  she  was  proud 
to  be  loved  by  a  yeoman,  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  settled 
stock  of  the  countryside  where  even  the  day-labourers  looked 
down  on  her.  But  when  that  proud  young  chap  had  lost  his 
character  and  dignity,  when  he  was  penniless  and  in  debt,  when 
his  family  had  kicked  him  out,  even  though  it  was  she  who 
had  disgraced  and  beggared  and  banished  him,  then  Hannah 
Iden  would  have  had  enough — for  that  was  her  way. 

§  23 

Late  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  a  further  blot  appeared  on 
the  soiled  integrity  of  Bodingmares.  An  irreverent  fate  seemed 
to  persecute  Jim's  respectability,  and  while  granting  him  every 
kind  of  material  prosperity  to  sour  its  gifts  by  some  accom- 
panying scandal.  Fuller  had  not  lived  down  the  gossip  and 
contempt  aroused  by  Clem's  mean  alliance  with  Orznash,  before 
Robert's  disgrace  reached  its  climax  and  brought  Boding- 
mares still  more  shamefully  into  the  talk  of  public-houses. 
And  he  had  no  sooner  begun  to  fancy  himself  in  his  part  of 
outraged  and  forgiving  brother,  than  all  High  Tilt  boiled  over 
with  the  news  that  Mrs.  Fuller  was  going  to  marry  Wheels- 
gate,  the  postman. 

This  was  quite  dreadful.  To  begin  with,  she  had  been  a 
widow  just  a  year,  and  it  would  have  been  indecent  for  her  to 
marry  anybody  no  matter  how  rich  and  important  after  so 
short  an  interval,  especially  as  everyone  knew  that  she  had 
not  been  quite  happy  in  her  twenty-three  years  with  James 
Fuller.  An  appearance  of  grief  would  have  been  all  the  more 
becoming  in  her  because  everyone  knew  that  the  reality  was 
absent.  Also  she  had  been  light  and  flirtish  ever  since  the  first 
five  months;  she  had  been  absurd  in  her  blushing  and  excite- 
ment and  return  to  youthful  looks;  she  had  given  people  cause 
to  wag  their  heads  and  make  ominous  forecasts,  so  by  all  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  85 

rules  she  should  have  disappointed  them.  But  now  everybody 
in  the  parishes  of  High  Tilt  and  Salehurst  had  "said  it  all 
along." 

Then  to  crown  all,  she  had  not  chosen  a  wealthy  suitor.  She 
could  have  had  Pepper  of  Weights,  a  substantial  man;  Fix 
of  Little  London,  though  at  yeast  ten  years  younger  than  she, 
was  infatuated  with  her,  and  his  land  touched  Bodingmares 
in  the  north  by  the  river  Dudwell.  Arthur  Powlard  was  a 
widower,  and  had  called  twice  with  his  daughter  since  Clem's 
wedding.  If  Mrs.  Fuller  had  taken  one  of  these,  then  at  least 
she  would  have  had  something  to  show  for  her  lapse,  but  she 
had  chosen  just  a  common  chap,  a  poor  man,  a  public  servant. 
Wheelsgate  was  about  fifty  years  old,  and  had  worked  as  a 
country  postman  all  his  life.  He  had  saved  a  little  money, 
and  was  reported  to  be  queer;  in  other  words,  he  was  fond 
of  reading  and  occasionally  bought  books.  Mrs.  Fuller  had 
a  little  settlement  of  her  own,  so  that  between  them  they  would 
be  prosperous  enough.  They  were  taking  a  cottage  outside 
Salehurst,  just  where  the  road  to  High  Tilt  crosses  the  Rother 
below  Bantony. 

There  were  tears  in  Elizabeth's  eyes  as  she  told  her  family. 

"WTien  I  wur  seventeen  I  married  for  a  hoame  and  a  hus- 
band, and  now  I'm  forty  I'll  marry  fur  love,  surelye." 

"Fur  shaame,  Mother,  to  spik  lik  that,  and  our  pore  faather 
dead  scarce  more'n  a  year.  Your  very  weeds  are  hanging 
from  your  head." 

"Doan't  think  as  I've  aught  to  say  agaunst  your  faather. 
He  wur  a  good  and  religious  man,  as  everybody  knows.  But 
that  sort  doan't  always  maake  the  best  husband,  and  reckon 
he  wurn't  a  lively  husband  to  me,  as  you  might  say.  I  aun't 
miscalling  him,  but  he  wur  more  lik  a  Gospel  Minister  nor  a 
husband  at  whiles.  Maybe  I  wur  too  young  fur  him;  I  wur 
naun  but  a  child  when  he  married  me,  and  you  grows  up  differ- 
ent after  you're  married  than  you  grows  up  a  maiden." 

"I  doan't  see  as  it  maakes  things  any  better,  your  saying 
all  this  about  pore  faather,"  said  Jim  sorrowfully. 

"Surelye  it  makes  it  better  if  my  marriage  wurn't  a  love- 
marriage.    It's  ill  turning  from  your  true  love  after  a  year.    But 


86  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

my  marriage  wur  the  marriage  of  a  young  child.  Now  I'm  to 
marry  as  a  grown  woman." 

"Maybe,"  said  Mary,  "it's  as  dangerous  to  marry  fur  love 
as  a  grown  woman  as  to  marry  fur  money  as  a  young  child." 

"I'm  shocked  and  I'm  grieved  at  you,  Mother,"  said  Jim, 
"fur  howsumdever  you  may  happen  to  feel  in  your  heart,  your 
doings  look  light  in  the  parish,  and  it  means  more  talk  and 
trouble  fur  Bodingmares,  just  when  folkses  are  starting  to  git 
used  to  Robert  and  his  ways." 

"You  mean  to  say  as  you  lump  my  marriage  along  of  Rob- 
ert's tedious  goings-on?  Then  all  I  tell  you,  Maaster,  is  that, 
if  you're  ashaamed  of  me,  I'm  ashaamed  of  you!'  And  Eliza- 
beth went  out  with  a  very  bright  flush  on  her  face,  which  made 
her  look  ten  years  younger, 

Clem  and  Polly  took  her  part.  Not  that  they  were  not  in- 
wardly scandalized,  but  she  had  been  kind  to  them  and  had 
helped  on  their  marriage,  so  in  loyalty  they  were  bound  to  stand 
by  her,  Robert  was  horrified  and  disgusted.  His  first  thought 
was  how  it  would  affect  his  relations  with  Hannah,  and  he  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  Hannah  would  dislike  hearing  her 
lover's  family  again  in  contempt.  The  lustre  of  Bodingmares 
would  still  further  be  dimmed  in  her  eyes,  and  he  thought  that 
in  that  lustre  alone  he  shone  acceptably.  Though  it  was 
pretty  plain  that  Hannah  valued  him  for  his  strength  and 
beauty,  for  his  size,  for  his  vigour,  big  Robert  seldom  thought 
of  his  own  desirableness;  his  love  had  brought  him  down  to  a 
humility  in  which  he  found  it  hard  to  think  that  Hannah  could 
love  him  for  his  person  alone.  He  felt  convinced  that  he 
could  not  stand  before  her  without  money  and  dignity,  and 
now  money  was  scattering  and  dignity  tumbling  down. 

Hannah  was  away  when  the  gossip  of  Mrs.  Fuller's  choice 
first  went  round  the  village.  She  had  gone  with  her  tilt  cart 
and  her  cousins  Yocky  Lovell  and  Jerome  Bosville  to  Shovers 
Green,  near  Wadhurst,  where  there  was  a  fair.  The  day  she 
was  expected  back  Robert  went  over  to  Blindgrooms.  He 
would  tell  her  the  news  himself,  and  see  if  she  minded. 

Contrary  to  custom,  he  found  the  kitchen  full  of  people. 
There  was  Ambrose  Ripley — Darius  was  absent — Tommy  and 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  87 

Sacky  Carew,  and  Aurora  Stanley,  pure-bred  gipsy  cousins; 
and  also  less  glorious  relations  such  as  Mary  Dixter,  Luna 
Devenden,  Peter  Criol,  and  other  half-breeds  named  after  the 
hamlets  they  came  from.  These  were  busy  over  the  fire 
or  round  the  table,  and  a  savoury  smell  of  roast  pork  mixed 
with  the  smoke  that  hung  under  the  rafters. 

Old  Leonora  Iden  was  plucking  a  fowl. 

"Here's  gorgy  Bob  from  Bodingmares,"  she  said  as  he  came 
in.  Everybody  stared  at  him,  and  the  dark  eyes  in  the  solemn, 
expressionless  faces  made  him  feel  more  than  usually  hulking 
and  ill  at  ease. 

"When  is  Hannah  coming  hoame?"  he  asked  Leonora. 

"She's  coming  to-night,  but  she  told  me  as  she  wasn't  expect- 
ing her  kind  gentleman  till  to-morrow." 

"I've  a-come  on  purpose.  There's  summat  I  want  to  tell 
her.     Wull  she  be  long?" 

"She  will  be  long,  and  when  she  comes  she  will  be  busy. 
All  the  poor  people  are  gathered  together  here  for  a  little 
feast." 

Robert  could  feel  all  the  poor  people's  eyes  upon  him,  boring 
through  the  smoke  of  the  kitchen,  and  his  sense  of  peculiarity 
and  outlandishness  grew. 

"I'll  go  and  meet  her,"  he  said,  making  an  awkward  dive 
for  the  door.  "I  reckon  she'll  be  coming  by  the  Mountpumps 
Road." 

"I  don't  know  what  road  she  comes  by,  sweet  gentleman, 
but  she  comes  with  her  own  people." 

Robert  was  anxious  to  escape  from  the  old  woman,  who 
hated  him  for  his  gorgeousness,  and  was  doing  her  best,  he 
knew,  to  mate  Hannah  romanly.  He  went  out,  ducking  his 
head  under  the  rafters,  which,  though  convenient  enough  for 
the  gipsies,  threatened  to  knock  out  his  brains  as  he  towered 
among  them. 

It  was  good  to  feel  the  cold  air  on  his  cheeks  and  in  his 
lungs.  The  December  night  was  clear  and  full  of  stars.  The 
Dipper  hung  over  northern  Delmonden,  and  the  southern  hills 
were  blocked  against  a  scatter  of  lights.  There  was  no  moon, 
but  the  starlight  called  the  roads  out  of  the  darkness  into  a 


88  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

pale  grey  gleam,  and  in  the  flats  below  High  Tilt's  little  gabled 
ridge  the  Rother  wound  like  a  silver  string.  Robert  had  never 
definitely  heeded  the  beauty  of  the  fields,  by  day  or  night,  but 
he  was  unconsciously  receptive  of  the  evening's  peace  and  fresh- 
ness; the  reek  of  the  dirty  kitchen,  with  the  smell  of  roasting 
pork,  was  gone,  and  with  the  oppression  of  his  lungs  vanished 
a  little  of  the  oppression  of  his  heart.  He  walked  quickly 
along  the  Mountpumps  Road — the  shorter  road  from  High 
Tilt  to  Ticehurst — his  footsteps  ringing  on  the  frozen  marl. 
He  would  meet  her  and  drive  back  with  her,  though  he  would 
not  go  in  to  that  outlandish  feast. 

But  he  had  walked  nearly  to  Ticehurst  before  she  came  in 
sight.  At  the  throws  outside  the  village  he  stood  and  saw  the 
lights  of  her  cart,  swaying  as  the  wheels  lurched  in  the  ruts, 
and  heard  her  stock  of  kettles  and  saucepans  clashing  together. 
The  small  horse  was  dwindled  by  the  piled  vehicle  behind  him 
— heaped  with  baskets  and  basket-chairs  and  pots  and  pans 
and  bedding.  Out  of  its  towering  and  lurching  bulk  emerged 
the  paleness  of  hands  and  faces. 

"Hannah!"  he  called  sharply.    "Is  that  you,  Hannah  Iden?" 

"Who's  there?"  asked  a  man's  voice. 

"It's  me — Bob  Fuller.  Wull  you  give  me  a  ride  back, 
Hannah?" 

"There  isn't  room,"  said  Yocky  Lovell's  voice.  "Here  we  all 
are  like  fowls  in  a  basket.  Besides,  it  ain't  fitting — Hannah 
rides  with  her  bridegroom." 

"Wot  d'you  mean?"  panted  Robert,  who  was  hurrying  along 
beside  the  slackened  cart. 

"I  mean  as  there  isn't  room  for  you  and  me  in  this  cart," 
said  the  voice  of  Darius  Ripley. 

"Hannah!"  broke  out  Robert.  "It  aun't  true.  Tell  me  as 
it  aun't." 

"She  can't  tell  you  no  such  thing,  brother,"  said  Yocky,  "for 
it's  as  true  as  what's  written  in  the  sky.  Jerome  and  me  have 
been  together  to  see  her  married  in  Wadhurst  Church." 

"She  was  married  by  a  clever  priest,"  said  Jerome,  "who 
made  it  all  as  proper  and  let-no-man-put-asunder  as  if  she  was 
the  finest  lady  in  the  land.    She  couldn't  be  more  safely  and 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  89 

elegantly  married  if  she  was  the  queen.  And  now  we're  going 
home  to  eat  a  porker  her  mother  has  killed." 

'•'Let  me  get  into  the  cart,"  gasped  Robert. 

''No,  no,  brother;  it  ain't  fitting,  seeing  as  she's  another 
man's  wife,  and  as  there  isn't  room  for  a  cat's  tail  among  us." 

"Nannie  .  .  .  speak  to  me." 

"Don't  trouble  her,  brother.  She's  happy,  and  she's  writ- 
ten you  a  real  letter  in  the  post  that  will  tell  you  everj^thing. 
She  didn't  expect  to  have  the  honour  of  seeing  you  to-night." 

Robert's  breath  was  nearly  gone  as  he  ran  beside  the  cart. 
He  could  dimly  pick  out  Hannah's  shape,  squeezed  between 
Darius  and  Yocky — the  great  wheel  of  her  hat,  and  the  lovely 
droop  of  her  shoulders  under  her  shawl.  With  his  last  spurt 
of  strength  he  seized  the  rail  of  the  cart,  and  tried  to  put  his 
foot  on  the  turning  axle.  But  a  hand  shot  out  of  the  dark 
mass  of  bodies  and  baskets  and  crockery,  and  strildng  him  full 
on  the  chest  sent  him  sprawling  in  the  road.  He  was  on  his 
feet  again  in  an  instant,  but  it  was  too  late;  the  little  horse 
had  been  whipped  into  a  gallop,  and  the  cart  went  lurching  and 
dwindling  out  of  sight. 

§  24 

At  first  Robert  thought  that  he  would  die.  Surely  no 
one  could  endure  such  anguish  and  live.  His  wretchedness 
was  not  only  mental  and  spiritual,  but  physical;  his  heart  felt 
swollen,  his  throat  and  tongue  felt  thick,  terrible  qualms  of 
nausea  made  him  weak,  and  his  eyes  and  skin  were  burning. 
For  some  hours  he  was  in  the  hell  of  physical  jealousy,  the 
blackest  hell  to  which  love  has  the  key.  He  wanted  to  kill 
Darius  and  to  kill  Hannah;  he  wanted  to  kill  them  horribly; 
if  they  had  been  within  reach  he  probably  would  have  done  so. 
He  pictured  himself  kicking  out  Darius'  brains  with  his 
nailed  boots,  and  when  he  had  done  so  he  would  hold  Hannah's 
face  down  in  the  water  and  mud  of  the  ditch  and  smother  her. 
He  felt  her  heaving  and  struggling;  under  him  as  she  suffocated. 
...  It  was  horrible,  it  sickened  him,  but  he  would  still  pic- 
ture it,  for  the  only  other  picture  in  his  mind  was  that  of 


90  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Darius  loving  her,  and  he  could  not,  he  dared  not,  look  on 
that.  .  .  . 

To  his  surprise  he  found  himself  walking;  he  must  have 
walked  for  miles,  since  he  was  nearly  home.  He  had  not  passed 
through  High  Tilt,  but  had  mechanically  taken  the  bostal  lane 
to  Bodingmares  from  Scales  Crouch.  Round  him  hung  the 
great  black  empty  night;  the  fields  were  in  the  stillness  of  the 
small  hours,  windless,  unstirred.  A  white,  star-thridden  mist 
muffled  the  Rother  valley,  and  had  crept  up  the  fields  to  the 
pales  of  Bodingmares;  it  even  lay  in  the  yard,  and  the  bam 
roofs  and  turrets  of  the  oasts  rose  out  of  it.  A  strange,  deep 
weariness  fell  on  Robert,  his  limbs  ached,  and  he  was  glad 
to  creep  upstairs  to  his  bedroom  and  fall  on  the  bed.  There 
he  found  himself  weeping,  crying  hopelessly. 

His  rage  was  dead,  for  his  jealousy  had  temporarily  burnt 
and  exploded  itself  out.  He  could  only  weep  for  her  cruelty 
and  treachery.  Why  had  she  done  this  wicked  thing?  They 
had  parted  so  friendly  when  she  went  to  Wadhurst.  Had  she 
meant  to  do  this  all  along? 

He  gulped  and  sobbed  at  the  thought  of  her  treachery. 
He  had  been  honest  with  her,  he  had  been  true  to  her,  he  had 
given  her  everything  she  had  ever  asked  him  for,  and  a  good 
deal  more  besides.  His  love  had  made  her  happy;  she  had 
said  so.  Yet  here  she  was,  turning  from  him  to  a  little  hound 
of  a  gipsy  who  had  never  given  her  any  special  devotion. 
Darius  Ripley  was  a  little  black  ugly  chap  with  legs  like  a 
dancing-master's  ...  a  good  light-weight  boxer,  that  was  all. 
That  was  a  thick  'un  he  had  given  Robert  in  the  chest;  he 
still  felt  the  burn  of  it.  Why  should  Hannah  go  to  Darius? 
Was  it  because  her  gorgy  lover  had  lost  his  splendour  by  get- 
ting himself  talked  about  on  her  account?  ...  But  that  was 
her  doing,  damn  her  eyes!  It  was  she  who  had  brought  him 
to  scandal  and  trouble,  and  then  shrugged  away  from  his 
degradation.  .  .  .  He  felt  the  fire  of  his  jealousy  once  more 
creeping,  and  the  knowledge  made  him  turn  again  to  his 
pillow  and  cry.  He  could  not  bear  that  again;  he  would 
go  mad  .  .  .  and  break  things.  Why  had  he  not  gone  to 
Blindgrooms  and  killed  Hannah  Eind  Darius,  or  let  them  kill 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  91 

him?  Should  he  go  now?  No,  no!  Killing  people  is  tar'ble 
.  .  .  killing  people  you  love  is  tar'ble.  But  he  must  go  some- 
where, he  must  have  someone  to  help  him  in  this  horrible  dark- 
ness, which  was  lit  only  by  two  pictures,  one  of  himself  killing 
Hannah  and  one  of  Darius  loving  her.  .  .  . 

He  slid  off  the  bed  and  stood  up  with  his  head  among  the 
rafters.  The  window  was  now  a  square  of  moonlight,  and  a 
white  light  was  creeping  into  the  room.  It  showed  him  Clem's 
dismantled  bed  against  the  opposite  wall,  and  he  suddenly  re- 
membered Clem,  and  his  loyalty  and  his  kindness.  He  would 
go  to  his  brother — he  must — he  could  not  bear  to  be  alone. 

Without  waiting  to  think,  he  ran  downstairs  and  out  of  the 
house.  The  waning  moon  had  come  up  out  of  the  woods  beyond 
Boarsney,  and  seemed  to  be  the  visible  heart  of  the  cold  that 
lay  like  a  clenched  hand  on  the  night.  The  fields  shone 
white  between  the  silvered  black  of  the  hedges,  and  the  shadows 
were  sharply  and  darkly  bitten  on  road  and  grass.  Robert  went 
through  the  yard  into  the  home  field,  which  spread  lonely 
hillocks  under  the  moon,  and  then  over  the  hard,  frozen  sods 
of  the  turnip  ground  to  the  little  backyard  of  Pookwell.  The 
house  seemed  wrapped  in  sleep;  the  dense  shadows  of  its 
thatched  eaves  were  like  lowered  eyelids. 

He  went  round  to  the  front  and  found  the  door  locked.  He 
beat  on  it  violently;  his  passion  broke  the  stillness  of  the 
night  and  then  was  immediately  swallowed  up  by  it.  He 
knocked  again  and  louder,  and  this  time  Clem's  tousled  head 
came  out  of  the  bedroom  window. 

"Who's  there?" 

"It's  me— Bob— let  me  in." 

Clem's  head  retreated,  and  there  were  voices,  then  foot- 
steps coming  downstairs.  The  next  moment  the  door  opened, 
and  his  brother  stood  before  him  in  his  night  shirt,  with  round, 
scared  eyes, 

"Wot  is  it?    Wot's  happened?" 

"Hannah's  guv  me  the  chuck.  .  .  .  She's  married  Darius 
Ripley.  .  .  .  Let  me  stop  wud  you,  Clem,  or  I'll  do  somebody 
in." 


92  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

§  25 

The  next  day  Robert  had  Hannah's  "real  letter."  It  was 
brought  down  from  the  farm  by  Polly,  who  ran  up  to  give  news 
of  him.  Robert  was  feeling  better  ...  his  misery  had  reached 
a  drugging  state.  He  had  slept  a  little  on  Clem's  sofa,  and 
though  he  could  eat  no  breakfast  had  let  Polly  make  him  sev- 
eral cups  of  strong  tea.  He  sat  by  the  fire  drinking  tea  when 
she  brought  the  letter  in  to  him. 

It  appeared  to  be  the  joint  production  of  several  minds — 
and  hands.  Hannah  had  had  little  practice  in  writing  since 
she  left  the  council  school,  and  this  letter  on  a  complicated  and 
delicate  subject  had  obviously  involved  her  in  difficulties  which 
she  had  failed  to  surmount  without  help  from  her  friends.  It 
ran: 

"Dear  Mr.  Robert  Fuller, — ^Hopeing  this  finds  you  well 
as  it  leaves  me  at  present  this  is  to  say  that  we  had  better 
bring  our  frenship  to  a  close.  Seeing  as  Hannah  was  marred 
to  Darius  Ripley  in  Wadhurst  church  by  a  preist.  Dear  Rob- 
ert, I  am  sorry  I  did  not  tell  you  I  was  to  do  it  but  you  wold 
have  made  such  a  Hell  of  a  row.  I  allways  ment  to  marry 
Darius  as  soon  as  his  farther  was  dead  and  woud  alow  it  him 
wanting  Darius  to  marry  roman  and  Hannah  only  Yi.  roman 
as  her  father  was  a  christian  in  a  workouse.  But  this  end 
never  have  gorn  on  with  you  and  me  as  I  told  you  at  the  start 
as  my  mother  dosent  like  my  going  with  Gentiles  and  I  prom- 
ised I  marry  romanly  if  Darius  father  wud  have  me  and  that 
was  always  understood  but  not  told  you  becos  of  your  temper. 
Well  dear  Robert  I  hopes  you  will  not  be  upset.  I  have  shone 
you  a  thing  or  2.  Having  no  more  to  say  I  will  now  drore  to 
a  close 

"from  your  sinserely  friend 

Mrs.  Ripley  and  husband. 
"p.s. — There  is  no  good  your  coming  round  as  Hannah  and 
me  will  have  started  for  the  fare  at  Horsmonden  early  mornin 
and  if  you  meddles  with  her  I  will  give  you  one  on  the  boko." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  93 

The  postscript  was  true.  Evidently  dreading  the  effect  of 
her  news  on  her  lover,  Hannah  had  arranged  to  be  out  of  the 
neighbourhood  before  he  received  it.  She  and  Darius  had 
stopped  at  Blindgrooms  merel}'^  for  the  wedding  feast,  and  had 
set  out  at  daylight  for  Horsmonden  cattle  fair.  They  would 
probably  not  be  back  for  some  time,  as  after  the  fair  Darius 
was  taking  her  to  see  his  relations  at  Apuldram,  near  Chiches- 
ter. So  much  was  gathered  from  a  visit  to  Blindgrooms  and 
the  gossip  of  High  Tilt.  All  the  village  knew  about  Hannah's 
vredding,  and  all  the  village  wanted  to  know  what  Robert  Ful- 
ler made  of  it.  They  did  not  get  the  chance.  For  a  couple  of 
days  he  never  left  Bodingmares.  Frantic  bursts  of  rage  and 
jealousy,  in  which  he  was  savage  and  black  with  threats,  alter- 
nated with  hours  of  semi-comatose  depression  in  which  he  sat 
heavy  and  stupid,  a  piece  of  cumbrous  and  depressing  furni- 
ture in  the  new  house  of  Polly  and  Clem.  They  kept  him  with 
them  all  that  day  and  night,  and  the  next  morning  he  went 
back  to  the  homestead,  having  been  persuaded  that  a  bit  of 
work  would  do  him  good. 

Jim  was  unexpectedly  kind  and  forbearing.  He  was  so  gen- 
uinely relieved  to  see  Robert  delivered  from  bondage  that  he 
could  endure  finding  Bodingmares  again  the  focus  of  local  gos- 
sip. He  hoped  to  goodness  that  this  ud  be  a  lesson  to  the  chap, 
and  that  he  would  now  settle  down  respectable  and  marry  some 
nice  girl.  Certainly  he  seemed  to  be  working  better  and  keep- 
ing clear  of  the  pubs. 

Robert  had  found  that  hard  work  brought  him  a  certain 
measure  of  relief.  It  absorbed  those  violent  energies  of  body 
which  threatened  every  now  and  then  to  send  him  off  murder- 
ously to  Chichester;  it  also  made  him  tired,  so  that  he  slept 
soundly,  instead  of  dreaming  of  Hannah  or  lying  awake  think- 
ing of  her.  Day  by  day  he  wore  himself  out  with  plough  and 
spade,  slept  heavily  at  nights,  and  spent  his  few  hours  of 
leisure  with  Clem  and  Polly.  They  were  kind  to  him  and  put 
on  no  superior  airs — they  made  him  welcome  in  their  little 
kitchen  after  dark.  Sometimes  he  felt  a  slight  jealousy  of  their 
happiness,  but  being  a  purely  mental  jealousy,  he  found  it 


94  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

almost  agreeable  by  contrast  with  his  feelings  towards  Darius 
and  Hannah. 

So  the  winter  passed  in  hard  work  out  in  the  hard  fields, 
driving  long  graceful  furrows  with  his  plough,  or  caring  for 
the  ewes  when  their  lambs  were  born  in  the  days  of  rainy 
scud,  or  driving  to  the  markets  at  Burwash  and  Etchingham 
and  Salehurst  and  High  Tilt.  If  the  image  of  Hannah  Ripley 
ever  rose  between  him  and  the  steaming  flanks  of  his  plough- 
horses,  or  of  his  trotting  mare,  or  between  him  and  the  ewes' 
draggled  fleeces  and  the  little  white,  weak  lambs,  he  would 
simply  bend  his  back  and  clench  his  hands  and  be  all  back  and 
hands  and  straining  thighs  till  Robert  Fuller's  animal  had 
saved  Robert  Fuller's  man. 

Sometimes  of  an  evening  he  would  go  and  sit  with  his  mother. 
Her  marriage  had  taken  place  before  the  ravens  had  done 
picking  the  carcase  of  Robert's  love  affair,  and  had  not,  there- 
fore, been  quite  so  much  gossiped  about  as  Jim  had  expected. 
She  had  been  married  quietly  and  early  in  the  morning,  and 
c«ily  a  few  people  had  attended.  There  had  been  no  wedding 
breakfast,  but  the  bride  and  bridegroom  had  gone  off  for  a 
real  honeymoon  at  Eastbourne,  which  also  helped  Jim  to  hold 
up  his  head.  Wheelsgate  had  turned  out  to  be  a  more  sub- 
stantial man  than  people  supposed.  He  had  comfortably  fur- 
nished the  cottage  at  Marsh  Quarter,  and  Elizabeth  had  bright 
chintzes  and  polished  metals,  and  new  clothes  in  which  she 
looked  hardly  more  than  thirty. 

Robert  had  been  very  unkind  and  ungracious  to  her,  but 
he  was  her  son  and  in  trouble,  so  she  always  welcomed  him. 
Moreover,  since  his  tragedy  he  had  been  much  too  beaten  down 
to  keep  up  his  hostile  attitude  towards  her  marriage,  and  had 
postponed  his  financial  emancipation  for  weeks  by  buying 
her  a  gorgeous  pink  satin  eiderdown,  which  she  said  was  far 
too  fine  to  keep  up  in  a  bedroom  where  no  company  ever  saw 
it,  so  had  spread  over  the  parlour  sofa.  Robert  was  proud 
and  delighted  that  she  should  value  his  present  so  much,  and 
every  time  he  came  to  see  her  they  would  go  into  the  front  room 
to  look  at  it  and  remark  on  its  beauty  and  style  and  costly 
appearance. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  95 

So  the  evenings,  which  might  have  been  difficult  in  their  long 
passivity,  were  lived  through  by  the  help  of  his  mother,  or  of 
Clem  and  Polly.  His  day  could  be  endured  till  bedtime  .  .  . 
then  if  he  was  tired  enough  to  fall  quickly  asleep,  all  was  well 
— and  he  generally  was  tired  enough.  Only  sometimes  the 
bounty  failed  him,  and  he  would  lie  with  his  face  rammed 
into  his  pillow,  in  a  grief  as  abandoned  as  a  child's  and  as 
motionless  as  an  animal's. 

§  26 

One  evening  in  March  when  Robert  went  to  visit  his  mother, 
he  found  Mabel  Powlard  sitting  with  her  in  the  parlour.  He 
did  not  recognize  her  at  once,  for  he  had  not  seen  her  since 
Clem's  wedding,  and  then  had  scarcely  noticed  her  in  the 
midst  of  his  sorrowful  turmoil.  Mabel  rallied  him  archly  on 
his  bad  memory,  and  Mrs.  Wheelsgate  looked  shocked.  She 
was  inclined  to  be  proud  of  Mabel's  acquaintance,  and  thought 
a  lot  of  her  smartness  and  elegance.  Mabel  gave  Elizabeth 
patterns  and  ideas  for  gowns,  and  took  it  for  granted  that  she 
wanted  fashionable  clothes,  and  not  just  the  sober,  useful 
garments,  remote  from  time,  that  the  standards  of  the  Rother 
villages  decreed  for  her  middle  age. 

Mabel  was  certainly  a  smart-looking  girl.  As  she  sat  in  his 
mother's  parlour,  with  the  flowery  quilt  and  the  flowery  wall- 
paper and  the  flowery  chintz  and  the  family  Bible,  she  im- 
parted to  Robert's  flagging  taste  a  savour  as  of  salt  and 
olives.  She  rasped  and  yet  she  stimulated.  She  brought  the 
atmosphere  of  streets  and  shops  and  picture-houses  into  the 
stuffy  little  parlour  of  a  country  cottage.  When  he  looked  at 
her  as  she  sat  with  crossed  legs,  showing  her  high,  tasselled 
boots,  he  seemed  to  see  the  great  flaring  lights  outside  a  cine- 
ma, and  all  the  gay  crowd  of  men  and  their  best  girls  going 
up  to  take  tickets.  She  was  pretty,  too — a  trifle  ancemic, 
perhaps,  but  he  rather  liked  the  delicate  colouring  of  her  lips. 
Her  soft,  reddish  hair  was  pulled  down  fashionably  over  her 
ears,  and  had  a  little  unnatural  ripple  in  it.  Her  eyes  were 
blue  and  rather  prominent. 


96  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Mabel's  way  with  men  was  also  different  from  what  he  was 
used  to.  She  did  not  giggle,  but  she  talked  a  great  deal,  and 
her  talk  was  full  of  flicks.  Some  of  these  he  did  not  under- 
stand, and  they  irritated  him — he  told  himself  she  was  "clever" 
— but  some  struck  him  as  very  amusing,  and  somehow  flat- 
tering to  himself.  Though  she  had  not  liked  him  at  all  when 
she  sat  beside  him  at  Clem's  wedding,  it  was  her  type  to  be 
self-conscious  and  sprightly  in  the  presence  of  a  man,  just  as 
another  type  giggles  and  is  silent.  This  time  she  saw  that 
she  was  making  an  impression,  so  was  inclined  to  view  him 
more  favourably.  Certainly  he  was  very  good-looking — a 
trifle  too  red  in  his  complexion,  perhaps  (she  wondered  if  it 
was  true  that  he  drank),  and  a  bit  clumsy  and  ignorant  of  the 
way  to  treat  a  girl  .  ,  .  she  felt  she  could  not  trust  him  to 
take  the  outside  of  the  pavement  if  he  walked  with  her  in 
Bulverhythe,  and  she  and  her  friends  had  agreed  that  you 
could  not  call  a  man  a  gentleman  unless  he  did  that. 

They  had  not  many  subjects  in  common.  Mabel  did  not 
like  the  country,  and  Robert's  knowledge  of  picture-palaces  was 
limited  to  High  Tilt  and  Salehurst,  where  they  never  showed 
the  newest  films.  He  had  not  even  made  the  best  of  his  op- 
portunities in  these,  but  had  used  their  darkness  and  privacy 
almost  exclusively  for  love-making,  so  he  had  very  little  to 
say  on  Mabel's  favourite  subject — he  knew  none  of  the  most 
popular  actors  and  actresses  by  name,  and  could  not  even 
remember  the  titles  of  the  pictures. 

Harry  WTieelsgate  came  in  to  tea  at  six,  and  afterwards  Rob- 
ert, in  response  to  a  hint  from  his  mother,  escorted  Mabel  to 
Salehurst  station.  He  could  not  help  being  impressed  when 
he  found  she  had  a  second-class  ticket — her  father  did  not  like 
her  travelling  alone  third  class. 

"There's  a  very  low  kind  of  fellow  about  at  present,"  she 
remarked  with  a  sigh.  "Not  that  I've  ever  had  any  trouble 
with  them,  but  it  doesn't  do  to  trust  any  man  in  a  third-class 
carriage.  Sometimes  they've  the  face  to  think  that  a  girl  is 
asking  for  it  if  she  gets  in  alone.  And,  of  course,  some  girls 
.  .  .  but  then  I've  never  had  any  need  to  do  that  sort  of 
thing,  and  wouldn't  if  I  had.     My  friend  Muriel  said  to  me 


GREEN  APPLE  HAR\TST  97 

the  other  day:  'Ma  belle' — that's  what  she  calls  me — it's 
French  and  means  'my  beautiful' — only  a  play  on  the  name, 
of  course — 'Ma  belle,  don't  you  think  you're  really  too  refined? 
A  girl  oughtn't  to  expect  men  to  go  all  the  way  after  her.' 
But  I  never  could  bring  myself  .  .  .  and  as  for  getting  off 
with  just  anyone  I  happened  to  meet  ...  in  a  third-class  car- 
riage, too  .  .  .  well,  all  I  can  say  is  that  girls  who  do  that 
sort  of  thing  deserve  what  they  sometimes  get.  Don't  you,  Mr. 
Fuller?" 

Here  Robert  felt  inspired  to  say  that  he  shouldn't  like  to 
trust  himself  alone  with  her  in  a  railway  carriage.  Whereat 
she  bridled  so  violently  that  he  thought  he  had  offended  her 
past  forgiveness — and  did  not  much  care  if  he  had. 


§  27 

But  evidently  the  offence  was  not  very  deep,  for  in  a  fort- 
night's time  she  was  back  at  his  mother's  with  some  patterns 
for  a  blouse,  and — so  Robert  was  told — inquired  after  him 
most  kindly.  Indeed,  so  kind  were  her  inquiries  that  Eliza- 
beth had  felt  urged  to  manage  a  little  tea-party  for  the  follow- 
ing week.  Mabel  was  coming  to  spend  the  day,  and  help 
Elizabeth  make  up  her  blouse  with  the  material  she  brought 
from  Bulverhythe;  her  father  was  coming,  too — evidently  his 
heart  had  not  been  wounded  past  repair  by  the  widow's  choice 
— and  Jim  and  Mary  and  Robert  were  invited  over  from  Bod- 
ingmares,  and  Polly  and  Clem  from  Pookwell,  so  it  would  be 
quite  a  party. 

"Some  people  can  afford  this,  I  suppose,"  said  Mary  aside 
to  Jim  when  she  saw  the  well-laid  table.  Her  stepmother's 
life  at  Marsh  Quarter,  with  its  mixture  of  comfort  and  ob- 
scurity, was  exasperating  to  her,  and  her  sense  of  decency  was 
outraged  by  Elizabeth's  quadragenarian  flowering  into  silks 
and  ribbons.  Her  attitude  towards  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wheels- 
gate  was  very  stiff,  and  she  ate  their  cake  with  small,  superior 
bites  while  calculating  the  cost  of  it  a  pound;  but  she  was  ex- 
tremely affable  tov/ards  Powlard  and  his  daughter,  though  to 


98  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

the  latter  was  due  the  encouragement,  if  not  the  inspiration, 
of  Elizabeth's  unseemly  tastes. 

"If  you'll  excuse  me,  wot  an  unaccountable  smart  hat  you 
have  on,  Miss  Powlard.  I  reckon  as  in  Bulverhythe  you  git 
the  very  laatest  thing." 

"Oh,  Mabel's  a  oner  for  clothes,"  replied  her  father, 

''But  I'm  sure  as  you  aun't  extravagant,"  said  Mary  gra- 
ciously, "extravagance  being  a  thing  as  I  cud  never  abide,  and 
folkses  putting  themselves  above  their  station,  especially  after 
they've  a-gone  and  put  themselves  beneath  it." 

"And  wot  exactly  do  you  mean  by  that?"  asked  Wheelsgate, 
smiling.  He  was  aware  of  her  spite,  and  in  his  state  of  fulfil- 
ment could  afford  to  regard  it  humorously. 

"Reckon  my  meaning's  plain  enough.  Howsumdever,  as  I 
wur  saying.  Miss  Powlard  .  .  ."  and  she  leaned  towards  Mabel 
with  increasing  amiability. 

Clem  and  Polly  sat  silent.  Mabel  horribly  scared  them 
both,  with  her  boots  and  her  handbag  and  the  powder  on  her 
nose.  She  made  Clem  painfully  aware  that  his  hands  were  not 
clean — you  can't  get  rape  dust  out  of  your  skin  in  one  wash — 
and  Polly  blushed  for  the  shortcomings  of  her  wedding  dress. 
It  was  uncomfortably  tight — she  had  grown  fatter  since  her 
marriage — but  she  had  sustained  herself  with  the  thought  that 
it  was  "middling  smart,"  and  here  was  Mabel  making  her 
feel  all  dowdy  and  common  as  well  as  uncomfortable.  .  .  . 

"I  can't  think  why  everyone's  so  stuck  on  her  marrying 
Bob,"  she  said  to  Clem  as  they  walked  home. 

"It  ud  be  an  unaccountable  good  thing  fur  him  to  marry." 

"But  not  her.    She's  sharp — she's  hard — she's  lik  a  spike." 

"There  aun't  a  girl  araound  here  as  ud  have  him,  surelye," 

"But  you'd  never  want  him  to  marry  Mabel  Powlard,  fur 
all  that." 

"If  he  doan't  git  married,  and  Hannah  comes  back,  .  .  ." 

"Maybe  she'll  never  come  back." 

"More  likely  she  will," 

"Anyhows,  I  doan't  see  as  it'll  maake  it  any  better.  Bob  be- 
ing married  to  Mabel.  She  aun't  the  sort  as  ull  kip  him  from 
harm  if  he  wants  to  go  after  it," 


GREEN  APPLE  HAR\TST  99 

"Well,  we  doan't  know  yit  as  she'd  have  him  if  he  asked  her. 
She  mun  have  heard  a  gurt  lot  about  his  goings  on,  even  though 
she  aun't  lived  here." 

Polly  sniffed. 

"If  she  doan't  mean  to  have  him  she's  no  right  to  go  looking 
and  talking  the  way  she  dud — 'Doan't  you,  Mr.  Fuller?'  after 
every  other  ward,  and  her  eyes  all  rolling  about  lik  marbles." 

"Maybe  he'll  never  ask  her." 

"I  hope  he  woan't,  surelye." 

§  28 

It  was  some  time  before  Robert  discovered  his  family's  in- 
tentions wath  regard  to  him  and  Mabel.  He  had  seen  her 
thrown  into  his  life  without  thinking  about  it  very  much. 
After  all,  it  was  good  going  about  with  a  woman  again.  Hard 
work  and  the  kind  company  of  his  mother  and  brother  were 
not  enough  to  push  Hannah's  dark  image  out  of  his  head;  he 
wanted  women's  society,  and  had  so  far  been  unable  to  get  it. 
Milly  Dunk  had  stuck  her  chin  in  the  air  and  walked  quickly 
on  when  he  said  "Good  morning"  to  her  in  Switesden  Lane, 
and  Maude  Willard  had  turned  her  back  on  him  when  one 
day  he  asked  her  to  go  with  him  to  the  pictures.  Therefore 
Mabel's  society  was  a  flattery  as  well  as  a  comfort.  He  could 
see  that  she  liked  him;  she  herself  had  invited  him  to  come 
over  and  visit  her  at  Bulverhythe.  They  had  walked  together 
on  the  wide,  brightly  lit  pavement,  with  the  wind  of  a  spring 
dusk  blowing  behind  them  down  the  street;  they  had  looked 
into  the  shops  together,  and  he  had  been  aware  that  he  was  a 
very  smart  young  man  taking  out  a  very  smart  young  girl. 
Certainly  Mabel  was  a  "oner"  in  many  ways.  When  in  the 
warm,  glowing  darkness  of  the  picture  palace  he  groped  for  her 
hand,  she  pushed  his  away  with  almost  a  slap,  and  would  not 
take  her  eyes  off  the  picture  for  all  his  longing.  "Isn't  he 
handsome?  Isn't  she  sweet?"  said  Mabel  every  other  min- 
ute, as  the  actors  and  actresses  rolled  their  eyes. 

But  when  at  ten  o'clock  he  stopped  with  her  at  her  father's 
door,  and  they  shook  hands,  there  was  something  in  Mabel's 


100  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

face,  tilted  up  in  the  lamplight,  that  he  had  often  seen  on  the 
faces  of  other  girls  and  knew  the  meaning  of  well.  He  bore 
no  grudge,  so  kissed  her  at  once,  and  the  kiss  intoxicated  him. 
After  his  country  loves,  it  excited  him  to  touch  the  novelty 
of  a  powdered  skin — Mabel's  powder  and  scent  were  part  of  a 
new  and  very  gripping  charm.  .  .  .  When  he  let  her  go  she 
was  furious,  and  called  him  a  beast,  and  said  that  was  not  the 
way  to  kiss  a  girl.  Poor  Robert,  whose  sentimental  education 
had  taught  him  no  other  way  of  kissing,  stared  after  her  for- 
lornly as  she  marched  up  the  steps  and  went  in,  banging  the 
door.  However,  he  knew  by  this  time  that  her  displeasure  was 
not  everlasting,  and  on  their  next  meeting  he  was  graciously 
taken  back  into  favour,  and,  indeed,  instructed  in  the  art  of 
kissing  a  refined  young  lady  in  a  manner  not  shocking  to  her 
refinement. 

When  Robert  discovered  that  his  whole  family,  with  the 
wavering  exception  of  Clem  and  Polly,  was  set  on  his  marrying 
Mabel,  and  was  working  all  the  social  machinery  of  Boding- 
mares  to  that  end,  his  first  feelings  were  of  indignation.  So 
that  was  their  little  game,  was  it?  Staking  everything  to  make 
him  respectable!  They  thought  he  would  marry  a  girl  like 
Mabel,  all  high  heels  and  high  notions  ...  he,  who  knew 
what  love  was,  as  if  the  wild  earth  itself  had  taught  him.  .  .  . 

Still,  he  hoped  that  Hannah  would  hear  of  his  flirtation. 
His  pride  was  stiffening  in  her  direction,  and  he  wanted  her 
to  think  that  his  heart  had  not  been  desperately  wounded,  and 
that  he,  like  so  many  men,  had  found  a  cure  in  a  change.  It 
was  with  such  an  idea  that  he  had  asked  Maude  Willard  to 
go  out  with  him,  and  made  one  or  two  other  snubbed  efforts 
at  courtship.  He  loved  Hannah  as  much  as  ever,  and  knew  in 
his  heart  that  he  loved  her,  and  still  had  his  moments  of  de- 
spair; but  it  was  inevitable  that  her  continued  absence  should 
work  a  change  in  him,  and  make  things  possible  which  other- 
wise could  never  have  happened.  His  love  for  her  had  always 
been  highly  concrete  in  its  manifestations,  and  the  images  with 
which  it  was  associated  were  one  and  all  concrete  and  material. 
These  images  were  now  beginning  to  fade  from  want  of  fresh 
stimulation;   their  outlines  were  blurring  into  oblivion,  and 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  loi 

others,  heavier,  thicker,  more  real  because  more  closely  allied 
with  his  everj^day  experience,  were  beginning  to  blot  them  out. 
If  Hannah  came  back,  if  one  day  he  was  to  meet  her  on  the 
marsh  where  the  road  crosses  the  river,  or  see  her  standing  by 
the  gate  at  Blindgrooms,  or  leading  her  horse  up  Mountpumps 
Hill,  then  back  she  would  come  into  his  heart  and  drive  every- 
thing else  out  of  it — because  his  heart  belonged  to  her  and  she 
had  signed  it  with  her  signature. 

But  Hannah  did  not  come  back.  By  the  marriage  customs 
of  her  race  she  belonged  to  her  husband's  people  as  much  as 
to  her  own,  and  Darius's  relations  lived  far  away  on  IMan- 
hood's  End,  beyond  Chichester.  They  were  pure-bred  gipsies, 
but  had  taken  to  house  life  in  a  cottage  near  Apuldram,  and  it 
was  said  that  Hannah  and  her  husband  were  to  live  with  them 
for  six  months  at  least.  However,  she  was  sure  to  come  back 
some  time  to  visit  her  mother  at  Blindgrooms,  and  the  Fullers 
were  wise  enough  to  realize  that  if  Robert  married  he  must 
marry  before  she  came. 

By  this  time  the  family  had  come  to  look  upon  marriage  a^ 
his  one  hope  of  reputation.  Marriage  was  the  only  cure  known 
locally  for  the  vices  of  extravagance  and  incontinence.  A  \vife 
was  supposed  to  provide  an  adequate  counter-attraction  both 
to  the  spendthrift  entertainments  of  the  public  house  and  to 
the  illicit  delights  of  the  twilight  lanes,  when  love  went  hunt- 
ing with  the  moths.  Robert  married  would  be  in  consequence 
Robert  settled  and  respectable,  all  his  shame  and  backsliding 
forgotten.  Robert  unmarried  would  remain  a  reproach  and  a 
disgrace. 

The  trouble  was  to  find  him  a  wife.  No  local  girl  would 
look  at  him.  His  reputation  had  not  been  any  too  clean  before 
he  fell  in  with  Hannah — he  had  been  regarded  as  a  noisy, 
drinking  sort,  fond  of  losing  his  money  over  darts  and  shove- 
halfpenny,  and  both  low  and  inconstant  in  his  amours.  His 
affair  with  Hannah  had  definitely  outlawed  him — he  had  loved 
her  so  shamelessly,  publicly  and  helplessly,  he  had  gone  about 
with  her  gipsy  relations,  he  had  made  it  impossible  for  any 
decent  chap,  let  alone  a  decent  girl,  to  know  him.  The  Fullers' 
only  chance  lay  in  a  girl  from  "furrin  parts,"  who  had  not 


102  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

properly  realized  his  degradation.  Powlard,  of  course,  had 
a  certain  knowledge,  but  he  talked  magnanimously  of  a  young 
fellow's  wild  oats,  and  obviously  regarded  the  match  with 
favour.  He  was  impressed  by  the  plumpness  of  Bodingmares, 
and  foresaw  a  comfortable  settlement  for  his  daughter. 

Affairs  had  now  been  brought  forward  to  a  certain  stage 
where  they  had  apparently  stuck.  Robert  went  often  to  Bul- 
verhythe  to  see  Mabel,  and  she  came  nearly  as  often  to  Boding- 
mares or  to  Marsh  Quarter  to  see  him,  but  Jim  and  Mary  and 
Elizabeth  looked  in  vain  for  further  developments.  It  was  now 
just  as  likely,  too,  that  the  developments  would  be  in  the 
direction  of  Hannah's  Reappearance,  coming  up  like  a  storm 
out  of  the  west  to  blast  and  wreck  the  carefully  tilled  field  of 
Robert's  courtship. 

Who  was  hanging  back — Bob  or  Mabel?  Powlard  under- 
took to  sound  his  daughter,  but  Mabel  was  a  "oner"  at  keeping 
her  own  counsel  as  well  as  at  other  things,  and  her  father  could 
find  out  nothing.  Jim  then  undertook  to  convey  a  delicate 
hint  to  Robert,  who  told  him  to  mind  his  own  business  and  be 
hemmed  to  him,  and  that  he — Bob  Fuller — wasn't  going  to 
be  druv. 

Then  the  time  came  when  Robert's  invitations  to  Bulver- 
hythe  suddenly  stopped,  and  a  request  that  Mabel  should 
come  over  and  spend  the  day  at  Bodingmares  was  declined 
with  frigid  politeness. 

"You've  a-done  it  now,"  said  Jim. 

"I  doan't  care  if  I  have,"  said  Robert. 

§  29 

It  was  June  when  Hannah  came  back.  The  hay  had  been 
cut  in  the  low  fields  by  the  river,  but  the  high  grounds  were 
still  russet  with  sorrel  and  plantain  and  sainfoin  waiting  for 
the  scythe.  The  lanes  were  dim  with  the  warm  dust  that  hung 
over  them  and  mixed  with  the  cloud  of  chervil  and  cow-parsley 
and  fennel  that  filmed  the  hedges,  making  with  it  a  sweet,  stale 
scent  of  dust  and  flowers.  Down  by  the  watercourses  the  haw- 
thorn had  faded,  and  the  meadowsweet  sicklied  the  still  air  that 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  103 

thickened  above  the  dykes  and  at  night  crept  up  as  a  damp, 
perfumed  mist  to  farmhouse  walls. 

Robert  met  Hannah  in  the  little  lane  that  runs  off  the  Sale- 
hurst  road  near  Bantony.  He  was  on  his  way  to  Haiselman's 
Farm  with  a  message  from  Jim,  and  he  did  not  know  that 
Hannah  had  come  back.  Her  shadow  came  round  the  bend 
of  the  lane,  lying  on  the  ruts  and  the  dust  and  the  wild  gera- 
nium. He  looked  up  to  see  who  was  coming,  and  saw  her  walk- 
ing towards  him  with  a  basket  on  her  arm.  It  was  a  warm 
day,  so  she  did  not  wear  her  shawl,  and  her  free,  strong  figure 
— slightly  coarsened,  it  seemed,  unless  his  memory  had  re- 
fined it — was  displayed  by  a  green  silk  blouse  fastened  over 
her  breast  with  a  heavy  brooch. 

They  were  both  taken  aback.  Hannah  wished  she  had 
her  husband  with  her;  as  for  Robert,  he  was  totally  unfit  for 
the  occasion.  He  stood  stock  still  and  stared  at  her  with  his 
mouth  open.    His  confusion  restored  her  confidence. 

"Good  morning,"  she  said,  and  passed  him. 

"Mornun,"  said  Robert  blankly.  Then  suddenly  he  realized 
that  she  was  Hannah — ^his  Hannah — the  woman  whom  his  love 
had  held  and  lost,  after  whom  his  heart  had  cried  all  the 
winter  through.    He  swung  round  and  went  after  her. 

"Is  'good  momun'  all  you've  got  to  say  after  wot  you've  done 
to  me?" 

"I've  done  you  no  harm."  There  was  a  faint  whine  iii  her 
voice — she  thought  that  he  might  fall  upon  her  in  this  lonely, 
stuffy  little  lane.  His  face  was  very  red,  with  the  veins  swell- 
ing. 

But  he  did  not  want  to  hurt  her.  It  surprised  him  to  find 
that,  after  all  his  murderous  impulses,  his  horrible  thoughts  of 
vengeance,  now  that  he  was  alone  with  her  and  had  her  in 
his  power  all  he  wanted  to  do  was  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and 
hide  his  face  in  the  soft  hollow  of  her  breast.  She  saw  his 
weakness,  and  her  own  passed. 

"You've  no  call  to  look  so  rude  and  black  at  me,  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Fuller.    I  only  left  you  to  marry,  as  was  proper." 

"I'd  have  married  you,  and  you  know  it." 

"It's  ill  done  marrying  outside  your  own  people." 


104  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"But  you  dudn't  play  honest  wud  me,  telling  me  naun." 

"You'd  eyes  to  see." 

"How  cud  I  see?  You  hid  things — ^you  went  double  .  .  . 
and  I  loved  you  so." 

He  stood  before  her  in  the  lane,  his  cap  pushed  back  from 
his  forehead,  his  face  flushed  and  faintly  a-sweat  with  his 
trouble.  He  knew  that  he  was  breaking  down  before  her, 
that  he  was  pleading  with  her— though  he  had  sworn  that  he 
would  make  her  plead  with  him.  But  he  could  not  help  him- 
self. The  flood  of  his  love  had  swept  away  every  emotion 
that  was  not  either  spiritual  or  animal — a  decent,  civilized, 
sensible  emotion  like  self-respect  had  no  chance  against  it. 

"Don't  make  me  one  of  your  vulgar  scenes,  Mr.  Robert 
Fuller.  Said  I  when  I  married  Darius:  'Well,  at  least  I've 
done  with  gorgy  Robert's  temper.'  " 

Her  words  cut  him,  and  he  gave  a  little  gasp  of  pain.  The 
hopeless  thing  about  any  appeal  to  Hannah  was  that  she  had 
no  essential  bedrock  or  bottom  of  tenderness  which  he  could 
entreat.  Such  softness  as  she  had  was  all  on  the  surface,  as 
the  earth  bears  the  loam  and  the  clay  over  the  hard  rocks. 

"Well,  I  must  be  going  on,"  she  continued.  "I've  bought  a 
fowl  for  my  husband's  dinner,  so  I'll  get  home  and  cook  it^ 
that  is,  if  you've  nothing  more  to  say." 

"I  never  want  to  spik  you  another  ward  so  long  as  I  live." 

"That's  as  you  please,  but  as  you  had  your  mouth  open  I 
thought  maybe  you  had  something  to  remark.  However,  good 
morning." 

As  soon  as  she  was  gone  his  anger  blazed  out.  He  thought 
of  going  after  her,  throwing  her  down,  and  beating  her  with  his 
stick.  He  would  like  to  break  her  ribs,  scar  her  beautiful  back 
for  life.  .  .  .  But  it  was  no  use  imagining  such  things — he 
could  not  do  them;  directly  he  came  up  with  her  he  would  love 
her  again,  and  reproach  her  and  plead  with  her  as  he  had  done 
just  now.  How  many  times  he  had  pictured  this  first  meet- 
ing, and  each  time  he  had  pictured  himself  as  the  avenger — 
he  had  scorned  her,  he  had  cursed  her,  he  had  threatened  her, 
he  had  frightened  her,  he  had  murdered  her  .  .  .  and  then 
when  the  thing  had  actually  happened  all  he  could  do  had  been 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  105 

to  flush  and  sweat  and  stammer  broken  entreaties  and  re- 
proaches. How  she  must  despise  him!  .  .  .  Oh,  why  had  he 
ever  met  her?  .  .  .  Why  couldn't  he  forget  her? 

§  30 

"Wot  are  you  doing  this  afternoon,  Bob?"  asked  Jim  at  din- 
ner. 

"Naim  as  I  know  on,  saave  as  I  said  I'd  go  wud  Pickdick 
and  see  how  the  hay's  doing  on  the  high  snape." 

"You  can  leave  that.  Pickdick  knows  hay,  or  ought  to, 
at  twenty  shillun  a  week.  I'd  be  glad  if  you  cud  go  over  to 
Bulverhythe  and  give  Turner  a  call." 

"Who's  Turner?" 

"Him  wot's  set  up  as  a  seedsman  in  High  Street.  I've  got 
his  cattylog  here" — and  Jim  fumbled  a  mass  of  grimy  leaves — 
"and  I'd  like  to  see — or  fur  someone  as  knows  to  see — one  or 
two  samples  of  hisn.  There's  awned  wheat  as  I  thought  of 
putting  into  the  Bugshull  field  when  it  comes  out  of  potash 
this  fall,  and  I  thought  as  maybe  the  awned  ud  do  better  up 
by  Bugshull  than  the  red;  you've  got  to  be  careful  in  them 
claj'S,  and  the  whole  was  a  bit  too  sedgy-leaved  last  time.  You 
ask  to  see  his  oats,  too." 

If  Robert  had  been  at  all  sharp  he  would  have  noticed  that 
Jim  spoke  with  a  very  elaborate  carelessness,  and  was  staring 
at  him  hard  all  the  while;  he  would  also  have  noticed  that 
Mary  had  stopped  eating  her  treacle  pudding  and  was  staring 
at  him  too. 

"And  sinst  you're  in  Bulverhythe,"  continued  Jim  with  a 
rush,  "you  might  give  a  look  in  at  Powlard.  Not  one  of  us 
has  bin  there  this  dunnamany  week,  and  maybe  offence  has 
bin  given." 

"Fm  not  a-going  near  un,"  said  Robert. 

Jim  and  Mary  exchanged  an  anxious  glance. 

"It  ud  be  silly  to  give  offence,"  said  the  latter,  "just  now 
as  the  two  families  has  bin  brung  together." 

'Well,  I  aun't  a-going  to  bring  'em  any  closer." 

"We  doan't  mean  anything  personal  to  you,  Bob;  you  mun 


io6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

maake  your  own  choice.  Howsumdever,  you  can't  drop  a  nice 
young  gal  lik  Mabel  lik  a  hot  potato." 

"If  you  called  now,  it  ud  all  be  in  the  way  of  letting  her 
down  gently,"  said  Jim. 

Jim  and  Mary  talked  to  Robert  with  their  eyes  fixed  on 
each  other,  apparently  drawing  on  a  mutual  spring  of  diplo- 
macy. They  had  heard  that  Hannah  Ripley  had  come  back — 
Jim  had  been  told  so  that  morning  by  Bream  of  Little  Moat — 
but  they  were  unable  to  find  out  whether  she  had  yet  encoun- 
tered Robert.  Probably  not,  they  thought,  as  she  had  only 
arrived  yesterday.  Bream  had  heard  that  she  would  not  stop 
more  than  a  week  or  two.  Darius  had  bought  a  caravan  and 
they  were  going  to  live  on  the  roads,  with  occasional  head- 
quarters at  High  Tilt  and  Apuldram.  This  was  encouraging 
news,  for  if  only  Robert  did  not  entangle  himself  on  this  visit, 
the  future  would  not  be  so  thick  with  temptation  as  they  had 
feared.  Jim  and  Mary  knew  nothing  of  (and  if  they  had 
known  would  not  have  believed)  the  loyalty  of  the  gipsy  wife 
and  the  chaste  marriage  ideal  of  her  people,  which  would  keep 
even  a  woman  like  Hannah,  who  before  marriage  had  gone  her 
own  ways,  the  loyal  helpmeet  and  servant  of  the  man  who  had 
captured  her  at  last.  They  had  made  up  their  minds  that  Han- 
nah married  was  just  as  dangerous  as  Hannah  single,  and 
would  not  hesitate  to  bring  Robert  back  to  heel  if  it  suited 
her  convenience,  as  of  course  it  would.  As  for  him,  he  was 
tow  to  her  flame,  and  as  he  had  never  loved  her  with  a  view  to 
marriage,  he  would  soon  get  used  to  the  other  man's  rights. 

The  only  thing  to  do,  therefore,  was  to  keep  the  couple 
apart.  Robert  must  be  sent  afield  daily  to  attend  auctions  and 
markets  till  Hannah  was  out  of  High  Tilt.  To-day  a  double 
opportunity  arose.  He  could  be  not  only  sent  away  but  sent 
into  the  neighbourhood  of  an  eligible  counter-attraction.  Not 
that  his  present  behaviour  was  promising;  he  swore  with  many 
emasculate  Sussex  oaths  that  he  would  not  go  near  Powlard, 
and  his  brother  and  sister  dared  not  rouse  his  opposition  un- 
duly by  pressing  him.  However,  he  agreed  to  go  to  Bulver- 
hythe  and  inspect  the  seedsman,  so  half  their  point  was 
gained. 


GREEN  APPEE  HARVEST  107 

It  was  a  hot  afternoon,  and  the  pavements  of  Bulverhythe 
smelled  of  the  June  sunshine,  but  the  sea-going  streets  were 
fresh  with  the  winds  that  sped  up  them  from  the  sands 
and  the  rocks.  The  streets  were  full  of  gay  colours — bright 
hats  and  blouses  and  parasols,  moving  to  and  fro  before  win- 
dows crammed  with  coloured  fruits  and  glowing  silks  and 
painted  tins  and  toys.  It  made  Robert's  eyes  ache,  he  felt 
awkward  and  alone  amidst  all  this  colour  and  movement  and 
freshness.  His  heart  was  in  a  stuffy  lane,  throbbing  before 
Hannah  as  she  stood  there  and  spurned  it.  What  was  she 
doing  now?  She  was  making  tea  for  Darius  Ripley,  perhaps 
eagerly  waiting  for  him  to  come  back  from  one  or  other  dis- 
honest appointment.  Robert  knew  better  than  Jim;  he  knew 
that  Hannah  could  never  by  any  possibility  belong  to  him 
again.  She  had  married  Darius,  so  she  would  be  true  to 
Darius  and  serve  Darius  all  the  days  of  her  life.  She  was  ut- 
terly gone  from  him;  perhaps  it  was  his  own  fault,  and  if  he 
had  managed  things  better  he  could  himself  have  been  her 
husband  and  kept  her  true  to  him  for  ever;  or  perhaps  it  was 
as  she  had  said,  and  she  had  always  meant  to  marry  Ripley 
when  she  had  the  chance.  Well,  it  didn't  matter  which — 
she  was  gone  and  would  never  come  back.  But  her  being 
gone  did  not  prevent  his  wanting  her.  That  was  the  dreadful 
part  of  it.  He  was  like  a  man  interrupted  in  the  middle  of  a 
drink  of  water — his  thirst  is  not  taken  away  because  the 
pitcher  is  broken. 

The  seedsman  did  not  think  much  of  Mr.  Fuller's  acumen. 
He  seemed  a  dull  fellow  on  whom  one  could  safely  land  that 
rather  rotten  stuff  that  had  come  in  from  Horseye.  Robert 
left  him  with  his  pocket  full  of  little  envelopes  and  his  brain 
humming  with  meaningless  talk  of  "Barbachlaw,"  "Potato 
oat,"  "Late  and  early  Angus,"  "rape  manure."  Hang  it  all! 
Was  life  to  lose  all  its  savour?  .  .  .  Once  he  used  to  enjoy  get- 
ting the  better  of  tradesmen,  but  now  he  didn't  care  who 
made  a  fool  of  him.  Oh  why  did  his  heart  lie  and  bum  in  a 
stuffy  farmhouse  lane  while  his  feet  beat  the  pavement  in  a 
seaside  town,  and  round  him  swept  the  sunshine  and  the  wind, 
and  the  girls  with  their  pretty  dresses  and  their  meaning  eyes? 


io8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

He  had  not  even  the  heart  to  follow  up  one  or  two  opportuni- 
ties that  were  given  him.  .  .  .  More  than  one  girl  turned 
round  with  a  friendly  look  towards  the  handsome,  broad- 
backed,  brown-skinned  fellow,  now  knowing  that  his  heart  lay 
burnt  in  a  farmhouse  lane.  .  .  . 

Towards  five  o'clock  he  turned  into  a  creamery  and  had 
some  tea.  It  was  a  poorish  place,  with  rather  grimy  marble- 
topped  tables,  but  he  had  been  attracted  in  by  the  cakes  in 
the  window.  As  he  sat  pouring  his  tea  out  of  a  teapot  with 
a  broken  spout,  it  occurred  to  him  how  much  better  off  he 
would  have  been  taking  tea  with  Mabel,  in  the  cosy  drawing- 
room  over  the  shop.  It  was  all  very  well  to  go  about  alone 
if  you  had  the  heart  to  invite  strangers  into  your  life  when- 
ever you  felt  lonely;  a  year  ago  he  would  have  selected  some 
girl  from  the  crowd  on  the  pavement,  and  brought  her  in 
here,  or  rather,  stimulated  by  her  requirements,  to  some  better 
place.  But  now  all  the  adventure  in  him  was  dead;  the  ruin 
of  his  one  big  faithful  passion  had  brought  down  with  it  all 
the  joys  of  casual  acquaintance  and  promiscuous  flirtation. 
He  had  no  one  to  be  faithful  to,  so  he  did  not  want  to  flirt. 

Perhaps  Jim  was  right,  and  he  had  better  marry  Mabel.  He 
v/as  in  just  the  right  frame  of  mind  for  marriage,  no  more 
spunk  left  in  him.  Oh,  he  used  to  be  some  sort  of  a  fellow 
once,  he  used  to  keep  the  bar  awake,  he  made  the  girls  look 
out.  .  .  .  But  now  here  he  was  drinking  tea  by  himself  in  a 
third-rate  creamery,  while  outside  life  streamed  by  him  in 
colour  and  wind  and  sunshine — unwanted. 

He  couldn't  go  on  living  like  this.  He  must  have  some- 
thing to  make  him  forget  Hannah,  something  to  fill  up  his 
empty  heart  that  ached  like  a  hollow  tooth.  He  had  been  a 
fool  to  offend  Mabel.  Well,  perhaps  it  wasn't  too  late  to 
set  things  right.  He  had  offended  her  before,  and  she  "had  for- 
given him.  What  if  he  went  to  see  her  after  tea.  .  .  .  She 
might  be  angry,  but  he'd  take  his  chance  of  that;  and,  after 
all,  he  didn't  think  she  would  be — not  very  angry.  She  liked 
the  way  he  kissed  her  too  much,  for  all  that  she  made  herself 
out  so  squeamish.  He'd  knock  the  squeamishness  out  of  her 
.  .  .  she  should  teach  him  to  forget  things.    Married  life  is  so 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  109 

different  from  single  life  that  a  man's  whole  outlook  is  changed 
.  .  .  oh,  yes,  it  must  be  so  .  .  .  even  when  one  has  loved 
one's  utmost  before  marriage.  Old  memories,  old  desires,  old 
torments  are  forgotten.  Besides,  one  need  not  be  so  much 
alone.  .  .  .  Not  that  he  meant  to  ask  her  this  evening — it  was 
too  soon — but  at  least  he  could  start  by  recovering  the  ground 
he  had  lost. 

The  idea  had  flashed  into  his  head  like  a  piece  of  madness, 
but  the  shock  of  it  brought  such  relief  that  he  found  himself 
adopting  it  as  a  reasonable  suggestion.  Anyhow,  he  would  go 
and  explore  the  ground.  He  paid  his  bill  at  the  counter,  and 
then  took  his  place  once  more  in  the  gay  shift  and  dazzle  of  the 
pavements.  But  this  time  he  did  not  feel  so  much  a  foreigner, 
for  he  had  a  purpose,  an  association.  He  would  not  tell  Jim 
that  he  had  been  to  see  Mabel,  for  Jim  would  flurry  him  with 
obligations,  and  he  wanted  to  feel  himself  free  up  to  the  very 
last  moment.  That  was  still  some  way  off;  it  would  probably 
take  him  some  time  to  get  back  into  his  old  place  in  her 
favour,  and  perhaps  he  would  never  be  able  to  make  up  his 
mind  to  bind  himself.  But  he  was.  glad  that  he  was  going  to 
see  her;  the  long  afternoon  had  brought  its  reaction,  and  he 
felt  in  a  mood  for  her  kisses.  .  .  . 

She  lived  in  the  west  of  the  town.  Her  father's  shop  stood 
at  the  end  of  a  quiet  terrace  of  genteel  houses,  the  one  plate- 
glass  window  in  their  neighbourhood.  The  door  was  at  the 
side,  at  the  top  of  a  flight  of  steps.  Robert  ran  up  to  ring 
the  bell. 

The  sunshine  streamed  upon  him  as  he  stood  there,  and  the 
south  wind  rushed  up  from  the  sea,  full  of  the  drawl  of  waves. 
Something  made  him  stop  his  hand  as  he  lifted  it  to  the  bell-> 
pull.  A  soft,  liquid  quality  had  crept  into  the  light,  the  shin- 
ing of  late  afternoon;  it  swamped  the  sedate  street  and  red- 
brick houses  with  a  queer,  golden  sense  of  adventure.  Some- 
how the  moment  gripped  him,  and  he  stood  motionless  with- 
out ringing.  Then  by  one  of  those  perplexing,  buried  asso- 
ciations which  tangle  thought,  the  moment  linked  itself  with 
another,  nearly  two  years  ago,  when  he  had  stood  up  in  the 
stuffy,  lamp-smelling  chapel  at  High  Tilt,  in  response  to  some 


no  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

strange  appeal  which  he  could  neither  understand  nor  deny.  A 
sudden  fear  shot  into  him.  .  .  .  Perhaps  it  was  going  to  come 
again.  The  south  wind  was  full  of  danger,  the  sunshine  was  a 
snare.  .  .  .  He  felt  as  if  something  which  had  been  pursuing 
him  had  at  last  caught  him  up,  and  the  fight  was  so  intense 
that  it  became  almost  physical,  and  unconsciously  he  edged 
closer  to  the  door.  Then  the  wind,  or  the  light  that  swam  in 
the  wind,  or  the  waves  that  drawled  in  it,  or  some  response 
to  them  all  in  his  distracted  heart,  seemed  to  say,  "Doan't 
go  in  thur  fur  comfort,  Robert;  come  to  Me."  ...  It  had 
happened  again — the  whole  afternoon  of  sunshine,  wind  and 
sea,  colour  and  movement  and  youth  in  the  sea-going  streets, 
had  taken  up  the  call  that  had  come  to  him  in  the  chapel  long 
ago.  He  felt  the  tears  rush  into  his  eyes,  and  he  turned  to- 
wards the  sunshine  with  a  new  longing.  .  .  .  The  next  moment 
his  fear  swallowed  him  up,  and  seizing  the  bell,  he  pealed  it 
with  all  his  might;  then,  without  even  waiting  for  admittance, 
opened  the  door  and  walked  in. 


§  31 

High  Tilt  was  agog  at  the  prospect  of  Bob  Fuller's  mar- 
riage. 

"To  think  as  any  gal  ud  be  such  a  fool  as  to  have  him," 
said  Pont. 

"She  aun't  heard,"  said  Dunk. 

"She  must  have  heard.  She's  bin  over  here  a  dunnamany 
times." 

"But  maybe  she  doan't  taake  things  in,"  said  Pix  of  Little 
London;  "she  comes  from  the  town,  and  she  aun't  see  Han- 
nah Iden,  nor  knows  that  no  decent  gal  shud  ought  to  touch  a 
man  wot's  bin  wud  a  gipsy." 

"She'll  find  out  soon  enough.  I'm  sorry  fur  her  when  she 
gits  spliced  wud  a  tedious  feller  like  Bob  F." 

"Maybe  he'll  reform  and  go  straight  when  he  marries.  Most 
chaps  do  it,  and  young  Bob  he  doan't  hang  araound  the  pubs 
lik  he  used.     Bill  Willard  said  to  me  only  yesterday  as  Bob's 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  iii 

drink  seemingly  goes  wud  his  wenching,  and  ever  sinst  she 
guv  him  the  chuck  he's  mostly  bin  sober." 

*'I  doan't  believe  it.  His  bad  ways  are  bred  in  his  boans 
by  now.  Maybe,  as  you  sa}^,  he's  different  from  most  chaps, 
and  drinks  when  he's  full  of  beans  and  loses  the  taaste  when 
he  gits  low.  Howsumdever,  a  wife  ought  to  send  his  spirits 
up,  and  then  we'll  have  him  ariiound  agaun  at  the  Woolpack, 
smashing  glasses  saame  as  he  dud  that  Saturday  night  last 
fall,  do  you  remember?" 

"Ho!  Ho!"  Everyone  remembered,  and  many  more  such 
memories  were  added  to  the  common  stock  before  Bob  Fuller 
dropped  out  of  the  discussion. 

Jim  Fuller  had  been  plunged  by  his  brother's  news  into  a 
mixed  state  of  bewilderment  and  beatitude.  At  first  he  and 
Mary  could  hardly  believe  it — that  Robert  should  leave  home 
swearing  that  he  would  not  go  near  Mabel,  even  for  purposes 
of  talk  and  tea,  and  then  should  come  back  plighted  to  marry 
her,  implied  conditions  of  courtship  unknown  at  Bodingmares. 

"He  must  have  chaanged  his  mind,"  said  Jim,  venturing 
on  an  explanation. 

"Seemingly,"  said  Mary  with  a  sniff,  and  a  toss  of  her 
head,  "and  maybe  he'll  chaange  it  agaun." 

"He  woan't.  I'm  hemmed  if  I  let  him  wriggle  out  of  this. 
He's  in  fur  it  now,  I  tell  you." 

"I'm  sure  as  I  hope  he  is." 

"It'll  be  our  third  wedding  from  Bodingmares  since  pore 
faather's  funeral,  and  the  only  one  of  'em  wud  naun  to  be 
ashaamed  about  it." 

"He  mun  kip  straight  till  he's  married,  and  not  go  scaring 
Mabel  vmd  his  ways." 

"He'll  kip  straight  enough,  pore  lad.  He  aun't  got  half  the 
spunk  he  used.  This  marriage  ull  maake  a  new  chap  of  him, 
and  it  ull  give  us  a  chance  to  hoald  up  our  heads  at  last.  I 
tell  you,  Mary,  I'm  sorry  fur  that  lad.  I  know  as  Hannah 
wur  a  bad  lot  and  he's  well  shut  of  her,  but  reckon  he  loved  her 
in  his  way,  and  he's  bin  in  tedious  poor  heart  since  she's  gone. 
It  shows  he's  got  some  good  in  him  that  he  dudn't  go  and  soak 
and  go  quite  rotten  sinst  she  left  him,  but  really  lived  a  bit 


112  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

better  than  when  he  had  her,  I  tell  you  I'm  glad  as  he's  got 
a  nice  gal  as  ull  help  him  disremember  his  troubles  and  uU  be 
a  credit  to  all  of  us." 

"Well,  anyways,  it's  one  good  thing  as  mother  has  done  in 
her  life." 

Mrs.  Wheelsgate  was  justly  proud  of  her  achievement.  She 
felt  that  she  had  won  regard  from  her  stepson  and  daughter, 
besides  saving  poor  Robert  from  a  long,  drifting  misery. 
Mabel  was  a  good  girl  and  a  kind  girl,  she  always  spoke  so 
pretty  and  was  so  ready  to  help  Elizabeth  with  her  cutting 
out,  and  was  never  shocked  at  her  desire  to  follow  the  fashions 
instead  of  the  sumptuary  laws  of  High  Tilt — nor  did  she  even 
try  to  persuade  her  to  copy  the  gowns  "for  matrons'  wear," 
which  Elizabeth  had  an  uneasy  feeling  were  more  suitable  to 
her  style  and  years  than  those  so  much  more  gay  worn  by  the 
slim  and  smiling  girls  on  the  other  pages  of  "Monthly 
Fashions."  Certainly  Mabel  was  very  considerate  and  friendly 
and  good-natured,  and  would  make  a  charming  wife  for  poor 
Robert.  Her  only  trouble  was  that  she  could  not  induce  her 
husband  to  give  his  opinion.  "I'm  sure,  my  dear,  she's  a  very 
pretty  young  lady,"  was  all  he  would  say  before  he  put  his 
pipe  back  into  his  mouth. 

The  opinion  of  Clem  and  Polly  wavered  through  many 
arguments. 

"I've  always  said,"  said  Clement,  "as  marrying  wur  his  only 
chance." 

"But  not  to  a  gal  lik  Mabel." 

"Wot's  wrong  wud  her?" 

Polly  pursed  her  lips. 

"She  aun't  his  style — she's  a  town  gal.  And  he  doan't  love 
her." 

"Wot  maakes  you  think  that?" 

"Well,  it's  plain  enough,  surelye.  His  heart's  wud  that  Han- 
nah." 

"But  sinst  he  can't  have  her " 

"You  talk  so  worldly,  Clem,  one  ud  think  you  believed  your 
ov/n  silly  wards.  You  and  me's  bin  married  more'n  a  year 
now,  and  reckon  we  shud  ought  to  know  wot  marriage  is. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  113 

You  know  as  well  as  me  as  marriage  aun't  all  sugar  and  smiles, 
and  as  thur's  things  in  marriage  wot  cud  never  be  stood  wud- 
out  loving  each  other." 

"Surelye,  child.  But  everything  aun't  the  saame  fur  every- 
one, and  wud  you  have  pore  Bob  go  single  all  his  days  because 
he  can't  never  git  the  woman  he  wants?" 

"He  can  wait  a  bit,  can't  he?  He  aun't  lost  Hannah  a 
twelvemonth  yit,  and  it's  ugly  seeing  him  disremember  her, 
horrid  lot  as  she  wur.  I  tell  you  it  woan't  wark,  being  all 
of  a  hurry  lik  this,  wudout  patience  so  much  as  to  wait  fur 
love  to  go,  to  say  naun  of  waiting  till  it  coames  agaun.  If 
marriage  is  a  sacrament,  as  I  wur  taught  before  my  con- 
firmation, reckon  as  you  can  taake  it  to  your  damnation 
saum  as  any  other." 

§32 

As  for  the  bridal  couple  themselves,  they,  too,  in  secret 
were  a  little  bewildered.  Mabel  had  never  meant  to  have 
Robert — she  was  aware  that  a  match  was  being  arranged 
between  them,  and  she  had  certainly  wanted  him  to  propose, 
but  she  had  made  up  her  mind  that  she  did  not  want  to  marry 
him.  He  was  not  her  sort;  she  wanted  someone  with  more 
polish  and  a  little  less  virility;  and  he  said  such  queer  things 
sometimes  .  .  .  you'd  think  he  wasn't  all  there.  So  she 
could  not  quite  account  to  herself  for  her  action  in  taking 
him — especially  after  the  way  he  had  asked  her.  She  would 
never  forget  how  he  had  burst  into  the  room  that  summer 
evening,  and  without  any  preliminary  or  explanation  had  cried 
out:  "Mabel,  I'm  sorry  I  stopped  away.  I  want  to  marry 
you.  Be  good  to  me,  because  I  want  you" — and  then  had 
taken  her  into  his  arms  with  a  strange,  entreating  gesture. 
Instead  of  repulsing  him,  she  had  let  him  hold  her,  and  some- 
thing in  her  had  melted  ...  his  warm,  appealing  arms,  his 
flushed  cheek  thrust  against  hers,  his  poor  heart  beating  wildly 
against  her  breast,  had  checked  the  impulse  of  anger  and 
denial  at  its  first  flash.  He  was  so  unlike  his  old,  rough,  com- 
manding, clumsy  self  .  .  .  and  the  new  appeal  in  him  woke 
a  new  response  in  her — she  had  become  soft  and  half  maternal, 


114  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

she  had  stood  there  and  held  his  weight  upon  her  shoulder. 

She  had  that  feeling  with  him  sometimes  still.  Poor  Bobl 
He'd  been  through  a  lot,  and  no  one  understood  him  except 
her.  She  had  heard  the  outlines  of  his  affair  with  Hannah, 
but  he  had  convinced  her  that  it  was  all  over  now,  and  she 
was  not  the  girl  to  demand  anything  impossible  of  masculine 
virtue  before  marriage.  It  had  all  happened  before  he  knew 
her,  .  .  .  She  told  herself  that  he  would  settle  down  nicely 
when  he  was  married.  That  sort  always  did;  Mabel  liked 
a  man  to  be  a  bit  of  a  dog,  as  long  as  his  dogginess  was  strictly 
antenuptial.  Besides,  Robert's  lapses  were  not  so  black  in  the 
light  of  Bulverhythe  street  lamps  as  in  the  unenlightened 
byways  of  the  Rother  Valley.  After  all,  his  were  the  small 
sinnings  of  out-of-the-way  public  houses,  small  bets,  small 
debts,  scandals  of  village  sluts  and  tavern  billiards.  She 
imagined  that  Bob  would  cut  a  poor  figure  in  Leicester  Square, 
and  with  her  superior  knowledge  of  the  world  could  afford  to 
smile  at  the  shocked  village  which  sought  in  its  concern  to 
give  her  surreptitious  warning.  .  .  .  "Now,  if  it  ud  been  Hugh 
Cousins,  who  was  always  up  in  London  on  the  bust.  .  .  ." 

Having  thus  explained  Bob  morally,  she  would  congratulate 
herself  on  having  engaged  herself  to  a  man  of  substance — 
coming  of  an  old  family,  too,  as  she  told  her  friends.  The 
Fullers  had  been  great  people  once,  and  had  owned  Boding- 
mares  for  hundreds  of  years.  They  didn't  keep  up  much 
style  now,  but  people  who  were  really  well  born  could  afford 
to  ignore  appearances.  She'd  done  better  for  herself  than  if 
she'd  taken  Stanley  Huggins.  And  Bob  himself  was  rather 
an  old  dear.  She  made  up  her  mind  to  consider  him  as  that, 
and  spoke  of  him  in  that  way  to  Muriel  and  the  others — it 
seemed  to  suit  him,  since  he  was  clumsy  and  rather  stupid. 
He  jarred  on  her  sometimes,  but  he  was  a  good-locking,  good- 
hearted  fellow,  and  she  never  regretted  that  she  had  taken 
him — it  was  queer,  but  she  didn't. 

Robert,  on  his  side,  was  pleased  with  Mabel.  She  had  been 
his  refuge  from  a  terror  suddenly  reinforced.  Now  that  he 
had  her  he  could  sometimes  forget  that  he  was  lonely,  and  that 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  115 

there  were  strange  things  prowling  on  his  lonely  way — dark 
shadows  and  queer  lights  that  frightened  his  childish  soul 
and  sent  it  flying  to  substantial  arms.  He  was  glad  he  had 
asked  her  all  of  a  sudden  like  that — though  he  hadn't  meant  to, 
not  till  he  was  running  upstairs.  She  had  been  so  tender  and 
sweet  when  he  had  taken  her  in  his  arms;  she  had  seemed 
changed  and  strong.  And  though  she  had  never  been  quite 
the  same  since — after  all,  there  had  been  no  occasion — she 
had  already  given  him  a  great  deal  of  pleasure.  She  was  a 
lovely  little  girl,  with  her  soft,  powdered  skin  and  her  fluffy 
hair  and  her  dainty  ways — not  nearly  a  bad  little  kid.  He 
liked  taking  her  about;  he  liked  people  to  see  him  with  her; 
he  liked  Hannah  to  see  him  with  her — not  that  Hannah  ever 
had  actually  seen  them  together,  but  of  course  she  must  have 
heard.  .  .  .  She  had  left  High  Tilt  now  and  gone  off  with 
Darius  in  their  caravan  to  Rochester.  .  .  .  Oh,  he  was  glad 
he  had  got  Mabel,  and  he'd  be  good  to  her.  He'd  make  her 
a  fine  husband;  he'd  hold  her  so  close  that  she  would  shut 
out  Hannah  and  her  mournful  shining,  just  as  a  penny  will 
hide  a  star. 

He  was  pleased,  too,  to  find  himself  in  favour  with  Jim 
and  Mary  and  his  mother — he  would  never  have  acknowledged 
that  he  valued  their  esteem,  but  he  could  not  help  being  proud 
of  it  now  that  he  had  it  again.  Jim  was  behaving  most  gen- 
erously in  the  matter  of  settlements;  so,  too,  was  Arthur 
Powlard.  It  had  been  decided  that  the  young  pair  must  be 
quite  independent,  and  settle  down  on  a  small  farm  of  their 
own.  Mabel  would  have  liked  Robert  to  move  townwards, 
but  it  was  easy  to  see  his  unfitness  for  any  kind  of  towTi  life, 
and  about  this  time  a  thirty-acre  holding  fell  vacant  near 
Bodiam.  The  house  at  Campany's  Hatch  was  new,  and  could 
rafely  be  called  a  villa  by  Mabel,  while  Jim  inspected  the 
land  and  the  buildings  and  found  them  adequate.  There  were 
about  ten  acres  of  orchard  and  tillage,  and  the  rest  was  marsh- 
land and  grazing  for  sheep.  Jim  and  Powlard  agreed  together 
to  furnish  and  stock  the  farm,  and  the  newly-married  couple 
were  to  settle  in  at  Michaelmas. 


ii6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

The  wedding  took  place  at  Bulverhythe,  and  was  a  grand 
town  affair  that  frightened  everybody  except  the  town  people. 
The  reception  was  held  in  two  palatial  rooms  at  the  Devon- 
shire Hotel,  and  there  was  a  crowd  of  guests — mostly  Mabel's 
friends,  shrill  chattering  girls,  and  arch  young  men  who  in- 
furiated Robert  by  saying  as  they  shook  hands  with  the  bride: 
"Wish  you  luck,  Mabel,  from  a  broken  heart."  The  bride- 
groom's guests  were  inclined  to  knot  together  and  gape  at 
the  rest  of  the  company.  Everyone  was  much  impressed — 
the  Fullers  had  done  it  this  time.  The  bride  wore  a  white 
satin  dress  and  a  lace  veil,  and  there  were  bridesmaids  with 
bouquets  of  carnations,  and  a  wedding  cake  three  tiers  high, 
and  real  champagne  that  tickled  the  roof  of  your  mouth  and 
made  you  choke  before  you  could  swallow  it. 

Jim  was  best  man,  in  a  mood  blent  of  triumph  and  em- 
barrassment. Mary  wore  a  new  dress  whose  tight  fit  revealed 
a  portly  promise  hitherto  unsuspected,  and  made  Pepper 
of  Weights  consider  that  there  was  still  a  way  open  for  alli- 
ance with  Bodingmares.  Clem  and  Polly  looked  nearly  as 
uncomfortable  and  pathetic  as  at  their  own  wedding — Polly 
had  covered  her  blue  dress  with  a  veiling  of  purple  net,  to 
make  it  seem  like  the  new  one  she  could  not  afford,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  fashionable  young  ladies  of  Bulverhythe  felt 
distrustful  of  the  results  that  had  appeared  so  marvellous 
before  her  little  bedroom  mirror  and  Clem's  admiring  gaze. 
Elizabeth  looked  young  and  alert  beside  her  kind,  silent  hus- 
band, who  seemed  to  add  in  that  afternoon  to  the  crowsfeet 
of  critical  humour  that  lengthened  his  eyes. 

When  the  reception  was  over,  and  the  newly-married  pair 
had  started  for  their  honeymoon  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  Boding- 
mares, Pookwell,  and  Marsh  Quarter  travelled  back  together 
to  Salehurst. 

"That  wur  a  valiant  wedding,"  said  Jim,  "summat  fur  us 
to  remember  all  our  days." 

"Not  that  we'll  disremember  Clem's  wedding,  nuther,"  said 
Elizabeth,  smiling  at  her  younger  son. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  117 

"Wot  about  your  own,  missus?"  asked  her  husband. 

"Maj'be  we  haven't  a-done  wud  weddings  yit,"  said  Eliza- 
beth, with  a  sly  glance  at  Mary.  She  had  not  failed  to  notice 
Pepper's  behaviour  that  afternoon,  and  saw  a  chance  of  more 
match-making.  But  her  step-daughter  briskly  disposed  of 
the  romance. 

"Now,  Mother,  a-done  do  wud  such  silly  talk.  If  you're 
thinking  of  that  old  Pepper  wot  you  wudn't  have  yourself 
coming  after  me,  you're  larmentaable  mistaaken,  as  is  all  I 
can  say.  He  never  looked  at  me  till  this  afternoon,  and  then 
it  wurn't  me  but  my  new  body,  as  all  cud  see  plain  wot 
hadn't  their  e3^es  blinded  by  sediment;  and  as  if  I'd  taake  up 
wud  a  chap  wot  can't  even  tie  his  boot-laces  in  a  decent 
knot.  .  .  ." 

"Bob  looked  middling  fine  in  his  new  suit,"  said  Clem;  ••'you 
cudn't  see  whur  the  trousers  wur  altered." 

"And  Mabel!"  cried  Elizabeth.  "Wurn't  she  wonderful  in 
her  veil! — just  lik  an  angel." 

"More  lik  a  piece  of  cold  fowl  in  the  meat-safe,"  said  Mary; 
"she  wurn't  looking  her  best." 

"I  never  thought  much  of  Mabel's  looks,"  Polly  felt  en- 
couraged to  remark,  "and  she  showed  an  unaccountable  lot 
of  her  skin." 

"You  shut  up,"  said  her  husband,  good-naturedly;  "you're 
fur  ever  talking  back  on  your  sister-law.  Reckon  Bob's 
showed  his  taste  this  time." 

"Bob's  done  wonderful,"  said  Jim,  "really,  when  you  think 
of  wot  he's  done,  and  then  of  wot  he  might  have  done.  .  .  . 
Well,  it  does  maake  you  think,  that's  all." 

He  leaned  back  in  his  seat,  and  his  watch-chain  expanded. 

§34 

Campany's  Hatch  stood  far  east  of  Salehurst  and  High 
Tilt,  in  the  parish  of  Bodiam,  close  to  where  the  Rother  flows 
into  the  Kent  Ditch  below  Ethnam.  It  consisted  of  a  modern 
homestead,  red-brick  and  rather  gaunt,  staring  from  a  little 
bank  into  the  drowsily  flowing  Rother,  and  a  huddle  of  barns. 


ii8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

mostly  about  a  hundred  years  old,  tile-roofed  and  tar-boarded. 
The  Rother  flowed  past  it  through  thick  beds  of  reeds,  and 
there  always  seemed  to  be  a  little  wind  moaning  in  the  reeds 
and  a  queer  moan  on  the  water.  Mabel  heard  it  at  nights, 
and  sometimes  she  lay  awake  listening  to  it.  It  seemed  part 
of  the  silence  of  the  country  night,  which  had  awed  and  dis- 
turbed her  when  she  came  home  after  her  honeymoon — a 
heavy  silence,  of  which  every  creeping,  sighing  sound  of  night 
seemed  an  accentuation,  just  as  the  sprinkled  stars  seemed 
to  accentuate  the  blackness  of  the  country  sky  to  eyes  grown 
used  to  street  lamps  and  the  ruddy  glow  of  a  town. 

The  nights  scared  Mabel;  they  were  so  unlike  the  days. 
She  had  never  imagined  till  then  that  the  country  held  any- 
thing strange  and  terrifying.  By  daylight  the  fields  looked 
dull  and  tame  enough;  she  could  see  no  beauty  in  them,  nor 
in  that  stretch  of  marsh  at  the  bottom  of  her  garden,  narrow- 
ing in  the  east  as  the  hills  of  Sussex  met  the  hills  of  Kent 
at  the  valley's  turning,  while  the  Rother  drawled  a  sluggish 
stream  between  the  reeds  and  pollards,  with  now  and  then 
a  red  sail  upon  it.  "It's  very  ordinary  country  round  here," 
she  wrote  to  her  friend  Muriel,  "flat  and  commonplace,  as  you 
might  say,  and  everything  so  old.  .  .  ." 

How  was  it,  then,  that  this  ordinary,  commonplace  country 
put  on  by  night  so  strange  an  air,  making  her  feel  an  alien 
in  a  foreign  land?  Lying  there  in  bed,  in  her  flimsy,  town- 
made  night-gown,  staring  at  the  black,  star-dazzled  sky, 
listening  to  the  sough  of  the  reeds  and  the  moan  of  the  water 
as  they  wove  themselves  into  the  brooding,  universal  silence, 
she  would  feel  strangely  and  terrif3dngly  lonely,  a  poor  little 
exile  from  warm,  lighted  streets,  adrift  in  the  solitude  of  an  un- 
friendly country.  The  common,  homely  fields  seemed  to  take 
on  a  savage  remoteness;  the  bams,  with  their  familiar  peaks 
and  sprawls  of  roof,  the  woods  that  crept  down  to  the  marsh 
from  Padgham  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  the  familiar 
outline  of  Ewhurst  Hill  blocking  itself  against  the  stars,  all 
held  a  dim  threat  of  dislike  and  alienation.  Even  the  man 
at  her  side,  so  familiar  and  commonplace  to  her  now,  by  day 
her  playfellow  and  companion  and  master,  now  seemed  to 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  119 

take  his  part  in  the  strangeness  of  it  all,  to  lie  a  hundred 
miles  remote  from  her,  even  though  he  touched  her  side.  He 
belonged  to  this  dark,  unfriendly  country,  he  was  part  of  its 
clay;  it  had  worked  itself  into  him,  his  very  skin  smelt  of  its 
soil. 

By  day  she  laughed  at  herself  for  the  fears  of  the  night. 
The  days  were  full  of  business  and  opportunity.  She  had 
not  yet  begun  to  find  country  life  dull.  She  spent  her  morn- 
ings cleaning  and  dusting  and  cooking.  Mabel  was  inor- 
dinately proud  of  her  drawing-room  (she  reprimanded  Robert 
smartly  when  he  called  it  the  parlour),  of  her  tapestried 
suite  and  cretonne  curtains  and  cottage  piano.  She  loved  dust- 
ing vases  and  ornaments  that  had  been  given  her  as  wedding- 
presents,  and  she  liked  to  lay  her  husband's  dinner  in  the 
dining-room,  and  congratulated  herself  that  she  had  already 
worked  some  improvement  in  his  table  manners. 

The  afternoons  were  less  interesting  than  they  ought  to 
have  been.  Mabel  did  not  go  calling  among  her  neighbours. 
One  or  two  visits  to  other  farms  convinced  her  that  they  were 
a  very  common  lot.  She  was  disappointed  that  the  better 
sort  of  people  did  not  call;  she  had  told  herself  that  the 
villas  and  the  vicarage  would  pay  their  tribute  to  Robert's 
ancient  family.  But  the  vicar  did  not  call  except  as  a  vicar, 
and  gave  up  doing  even  that  after  Robert  had  told  him  what 
he  thought  of  the  Established  Church;  the  two  maiden  ladies 
from  the  cottage  by  the  bridge  never  stopped  their  pony- 
carriage  at  Campany's  gate,  and  Mrs.  Simpson-Scott  of  Fowl- 
brook  House  actually  seemed  to  think  that  she  could  have 
commercial  dealings  with  Mrs.  Robert  Fuller  while  ignoring 
her  socially,  and  came  persistently  to  the  farm  for  butter  and 
eggs  till  at  last  she  learned  her  mistake. 

"We  occasionally  oblige  friends,"  said  Mabel  loftily,  "but 
we  don't  serve  customers  in  the  ordinary  way." 

Mrs.  Simpson-Scott  gaped  at  her,  and  that  afternoon  asked 
the  vicar  if  he  knew  where  on  earth  the  new  tenant  of  Cam- 
pany's Hatch  had  picked  up  his  wife. 

Mabel  saw  that  she  was  expected  to  frequent  the  society 
of  ladies  who  wore  aprons  all  the  week,  and  on  Sundays  black 


120  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

capes  trimmed  with  bugles  and  smelling  strongly  of  camphor. 
She  was  expected  to  find  relaxation  in  the  gossip  of  stout, 
coarse-handed  girls,  who  spoke  of  calves  and  chicken  meal, 
and  took  hilarious  delight  in  old  American  knockabout  films 
if  ever  by  some  generosity  or  tenderness  of  the  male  they 
found  themselves  in  the  picture-house.  She  was  indignant  at 
this;  she  told  herself  that  she  had  married  a  gentleman- farmer, 
and  couldn't  be  expected  to  mix  with  people  who  made  no 
claim  to  refinement.  Not  that  her  gentleman-farmer  made 
any,  but  enjoyed  himself  with  the  husbands  and  fathers  of 
the  women  she  despised,  though  Mabel  worked  hard  to  bring 
him  to  a  sense  of  his  own  greatness. 

Her  visits,  then,  were  limited  to  the  houses  of  her  relations, 
and  even  here  she  found  much  to  humiliate  her.  After  all, 
Elizabeth  was  married  to  a  country  postman,  and  though  the 
fact  had  not  troubled  Mabel  as  a  friend  it  troubled  her  much 
as  a  daughter-in-law.  As  for  Pookwell,  it  was  a  poor  little 
place,  and  Clem  and  Polly  were  altogether  common.  They 
lived  just  like  a  labourer  and  his  wife;  she  came  in  once  to 
find  Polly  clearing  up  after  Clem  had  had  his  bath  in  the 
kitchen.  .  .  ,  No  wonder  Bob  couldn't  understand  why  he 
must  never  wash  in  the  scullery  sink.  She  didn't  look  down  on 
them  for  being  poor — oh,  no,  of  course  not;  poverty  was 
often  quite  refined — but  they  could  have  held  their  heads  up 
and  kept  their  hands  clean,  instead  of  sinking  to  the  level  of 
their  surroundings. 

Bodingmares  was  a  little  better.  A  second  prosperous  sum- 
mer had  resulted  in  new  china  and  curtains,  and  Jim's  good 
luck  and  success  had  won  him  respect  as  far  as  Bodiam. 
Mabel  decided  that  she  could  safely  call  him  a  gentleman- 
farmer,  and  sometimes  felt  a  little  of  his  pride  when  he  showed 
her  his  promising  turnip  crop,  or  his  new  steer,  or  spoke  of 
the  knowing  and  experienced  cow-man  who  was  coming  to 
him  from  Churchsettle.  Bodingmares  was  solid  and  reputable 
and  flourishing,  and  inside  it  were  the  respectabilities  of  well- 
swept  floors  and  clean  sheets  and  copper  pans.  Of  course 
there  was  much  that  offended — meals  in  the  kitchen,  and 
shirt  sleeves,  and  farm  men  clumping  in  and  out  without  any 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  121 

realization  of  the  gulf  between  them  and  their  employers— 
but  on  the  whole  Mabel  approved  of  Bodingmares,  and  praised 
it  to  her  friends  as  "old-fashioned"  and  "quaint"  and  "really 
a  manor  house,  you  know — belonged  to  the  Fullers  for  hun- 
dreds of  years." 

So  Bob's  wife  spent  her  days  in  small  prides  and  small 
efforts  and  small  societies,  and  at  night  lay  awake,  chilled 
and  lonely,  afraid  of  the  darkness  and  silence  of  the  country 
in  which  she  was  a  stranger. 

§35 

It  never  struck  Clem  and  Polly  to  be  jealous  of  Campany's 
Hatch — at  least,  it  never  struck  Clem,  and  if  it  struck  Polly 
she  kept  her  ov\ti  counsel.  Robert  had  always  been  so  much 
the  elder  brother.  .  .  .  He  had  always  had  more  money  than 
Clem,  more  freedom,  more  consideration,  and  now  it  seemed 
only  natural  that  he  should  be  living  independently  on  a  nice 
little  holding,  while  Clem  and  his  wife  lived  in  a  labourer's 
four-roomed  cottage  and  worked  hard  all  day  for  others. 
Besides,  Mabel  was  a  lady;  not  that  Clem  cared  much  for 
ladies — the  more  he  saw  of  Mabel  the  more  thankful  he  was 
that  his  own  wife  had  no  claim  to  such  distinction — but  he 
would  no  more  have  thought  of  asking  a  lady  to  live  in  a 
cottage  like  Pookwell,  and  scrub  the  floors,  and  wash  her 
husband's  shirts  and  clean  his  boots,  and  chop  her  oun  wood, 
than  he  would  have  thought  of  keeping  a  blood  mare  in  a 
farmhouse  stall.  She  was  a  different  breed  of  animal,  and  must 
be  fed  and  treated  differently  or  she  would  go  sick. 

Mabel,  on  her  side,  did  not  think  much  of  the  married  love 
of  Clem  and  Polly.  He  could  not  really  love  his  wife,  she 
told  herself,  or  he  would  not  let  her  work  for  him  as  she  did. 
He  did  not  even  treat  her  with  the  consideration  she  had  at 
last  trained  Robert  to  show.  He  would  sit  in  his  shirt-sleeves 
reading  the  paper,  while  she  washed  up  the  tea  things,  he 
never  opened  the  door  for  her,  as  she  had  so  carefully  taught 
Robert  to  do,  and  he  seemed  to  expect  her  to  have  his  clothes 
washed  and  mended,  his  house  cleaned  and  his  dinner  cooked 
all  as  a  matter  of  course. 


122  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Why  don't  you  make  your  husband  do  that?"  said  Mabel 
one  day  when  she  found  Polly  chopping  firewood. 

"Clem's  got  his  own  work,  surelye." 

"But  Robert  would  never  let  me  chop  wood.  I  might  cut 
my  fingers." 

"Clem  knows  as  I  woan't  cut  my  fingers." 

"But  wood-cutting  isn't  woman's  work.  I  should  feel  as 
if  I  was  demeaning  myself  if  I  did  it.  That  chopper's  too 
heavy  for  you,  and  no  wonder  your  hands  are  rough  and  hard 
if  that's  the  way  you  use  them." 

"My  hands  are  well  enough,"  said  Polly,  beginning  to  be 
offended.  "I'd  sooner  have  an  honest,  working  pair  of  hands 
than  a  pair  of  useless  white  'uns,"  and  her  eyes  rested  for  a 
moment  on  Mabel's. 

"You  mustn't  mind  my  speaking,"  said  her  sister-in-law 
good-humouredly,  "only  I've  got  such  good  results  out  of 
training  Bob  that  I  thought  you  might  find  it  worth  while 
to  try  your  hand  with  Clem.  I  never  saw  anything  like  the 
way  husbands  behave  round  here,  expecting  their  wives  to 
work  for  them  from  morning  till  night.  I  dare  say  it's  just 
ignorance;  they've  never  been  taught  how  gentlemen  ought 
to  behave  to  ladies.  But  if  one  person  is  used  to  refined 
customs  she  can  make  a  lot  of  difference  in  a  place." 

"I  want  no  chaange,  thanks,"  said  Polly. 

Mabel  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  they  talked  of  other 
things  till  Clem  came  in,  bawling  cheerfully: 

"Well,  missus,  whur's  my  tea?" 

Certainly  his  behaviour  as  a  husband  was  not  up  to  genteel, 
town  standards.  He  conformed  to  the  traditions  of  the  Rother 
Valley,  where  unselfish  and  devoted  love  was  often  hidden 
under  superficial  coarseness  and  indifference.  But  Polly,  too, 
was  the  child  of  her  neighbourhood  and  generation,  and  would 
not  have  had  him  changed.  Indeed  she  would  have  been 
acutely  embarrassed  if  he  had  sprung  up  to  open  the  door 
for  her,  as  Mabel  expected  a  man  to  be  always  doing,  or  had 
taken  to  blacking  his  own  boots  or  helping  her  with  the 
sweeping  and  washing-up.  He  worked  for  her  hard  from 
morning  till  night,  never  allowed  her  to  be  put  upon  by  his 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  123 

family,  showed  her  consideration  in  all  the  fundamental  things 
of  their  common  life,  where  Mabel's  standards  wouud  not 
have  forbidden  some  tyranny;  so  she  was  glad  that  he 
should  have  his  evening's  rest,  undisturbed  by  any  domestic 
task,  that  he  should  enjoy  his  tub  before  the  fire  without 
undue  qualms  as  to  her  trouble,  and  sit  in  his  shirt-sleeves 
and  smoke  his  pipe  unrebuked  by  her  refinement. 

Both  Polly  and  Clem  were  bitterly  disappointed  in  her 
continued  childlessness.  Clem  minded  more  for  her  sake  than 
for  his;  after  all,  they  had  none  too  much  to  live  on,  and 
he  was  absolutely  content  with  their  present  life  together; 
but  he  knew  how  she  had  always  loved  children,  how  she 
had  married  him  full  of  the  hope  of  having  a  child.  He  had 
so  often  seen  her  with  another  woman's  baby  in  her  arms 
that  it  seemed  cruel  to  think  that  she  might  never  carry  a 
baby  of  her  own.  At  present  he  must  be  her  child,  and  he 
submitted  more  and  more  to  a  maternal  quality  in  her  love, 
to  a  tender  physical  care  for  him,  to  something  protecting 
and  soothing  in  her  caresses.  She  never  complained  or  re- 
pined, and  her  acceptance  woke  him  to  a  responsive  sacrifice, 
so  that  he  would  often  be  clinging  and  gentle  when  he  would 
have  rather  been  passionate,  putting  the  mother  in  her  before 
the  wife. 

It  could  not  fail  to  come  as  a  pang  to  them  both  when 
they  heard  that  Mabel  was  expecting  a  baby.  She  had  now 
been  married  a  little  over  a  year,  and  she  did  not  want  a 
child. 

"I  don't  like  children,"  she  said  fretfully,  "and  I  don't 
think  I'm  strong  enough." 

"You  look  middling  strong,  surelye,"  said  Polly. 

"Children  mean  trouble  and  expense,  too;  it  seems  a  shame." 

"I  reckon  Bob's  pleased." 

"Oh,  Bob — of  course  he  is.    The  trouble  isn't  his." 

"But  the  expense  is." 

"He  doesn't  worry  about  that.  As  long  as  we've  got 
enough  for  our  clothes  and  to  eat  and  drink  and  to  keep 
the  place  going,  he's  satisfied.  He  never  thinks  of  progress 
like  me." 


124  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Why,  he  wur  telling  Jim  only  last  Wednesday  as  he'd  a 
mind  to  buy  them  fifteen  acres  of  snape  wot  are  up  at  sale, 
if  he  docs  well  with  his  oats  this  fall." 

"That's  not  the  sort  of  progress  I  mean;  that's  a  very  low 
idea.  I  vv^ant  us  to  live  in  better  style,  with  a  servant— one 
who  can  wait  at  table.  And  now  he  goes  and  lands  me  with 
a  child.    I  shall  have  to  work  harder  than  ever." 

"Doan't  vrother;  he'll  go  on  opening  the  door  fur  you, 
I  reckon,"  said  Polly  maliciously. 

§36 

During  the  year  that  he  had  been  married,  Robert  had 
seen  very  little  of  Hannah.  She  had  come  back  to  High  Tilt 
on  two  or  three  occasions.  Once  Robert  had  met  her,  and 
had  said  "Good  momun',  ma'am,"  in  a  very  loud  voice,  and 
another  time  he  had  seen  her  in  the  distance,  walking  with 
Darius  up  Megrims  Hill.  But  they  had  never  done  more  than 
pass  the  time  of  day,  they  had  had  no  conversation,  and  he 
did  not  know  what  she  thought  about  his  marriage. 

Her  occasional  presence  caused  him  no  disquiet.  His  mar- 
riage had  healed  the  wound  in  his  pride;  he  could  hold  up  his 
head;  he  had  shown  her  that  her  power  was  broken.  More- 
over, High  Tilt  was  five  miles  from  Campany's  Hatch;  he 
did  not  run  the  continual  risk  of  meeting  her,  and  often,  in- 
deed, did  not  hear  she  was  come  till  she  was  gone  again.  Be- 
sides, his  marriage  had  worked  a  more  sweeping  change  in  his 
life  than  he  had  expected;  it  was  not  merely  the  intensification 
and  domestication  of  an  ordinary  love  affair,  Mabel  had  a 
queer  power  over  him,  such  as  no  other  girl,  not  even  Han- 
nah had  had  in  quite  the  same  way.  She  ruled  him  through 
his  comforts,  and  he  paid  her  for  all  she  did  for  him  by  doing 
what  she  wanted  in  small  things.  He  obeyed  her  in  trivial 
m.atters  of  fetching  and  carrying  and  lifting  and  opening — 
and  his  obedience  was  of  necessitj^ — while  in  bigger,  more 
personal  matters  she  submitted  to  his  will. 

On  the  v/hole  he  v/as  happy.  His  f^rm  interested  him,  and 
having  been  well  started  with  stock  and  capital  and  experience, 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  125 

had  so  far  caused  him  little  anxiety.  He  worked  for  himself 
with  a  concentration  he  would  never  have  worked  for  Jim; 
besides,  he  no  longer  felt  any  temptation  to  go  roving.  His 
instincts  were  satisfied,  and  he  stuck  to  his  fields  with  a  faith- 
fulness he  had  never  shown  to  the  fields  of  Bodingmares.  His 
interests  were  centred  in  that  villainous  red  homestead  and 
its  respectable  bams;  they  no  longer  called  him  away  from 
his  duties  toward  dim,  unestablished  desires.  The  unknown 
adventure  no  longer  piped  to  him  from  tlie  horizon. 

It  was  perhaps  strange  that  he  did  not  hear  it  call,  for  he 
certainly  had  not  yet  caught  it  and  brought  it  home.  There 
was  no  adventure  about  Campany's  Hatch,  no  adventure  about 
Mabel — he  had  known  all  there  was  to  know  about  either  at 
the  end  of  a  week.  Not  that  Robert  had  ever  consciously 
gone  hunting  adventure.  The  call  had  always  come  through 
a  vague  troubling  of  his  senses,  and  he  had  run  to  obedience 
no  further  than  the  nearest  girl  or  public  house  .  .  .  but  even 
that  restless  urge  of  his  own  manhood  no  longer  drove  him 
now.  It  was  satisfied  and  deaf.  It  had  thickened  and  hard- 
ened above  that  depth  of  hungering  sorrow  which  alone  could 
have  answered  the  call  from  the  horizon,  as  deep  answers  to 
deep.  His  love  for  Hannah  lay  buried  under  the  satisfaction 
of  his  instincts  by  Mabel  and  Campany's  Hatch.  He  told 
himself  that  he  loved  Mabel — she  was  irritating  at  times,  and 
sharp  words  occasionally  passed  between  them,  but  on  the 
whole  she  was  a  pretty,  comfortable  little  kid,  and  his  life 
with  her  was  like  a  drowsy  rest  after  the  storm  of  his  life 
with  Hannah  and  the  starving  drought  of  his  life  alone. 

At  the  beginning  of  their  married  life,  when  first  he  had 
aroused  her  passions,  Mabel  asked  him  a  great  many  ques- 
tions about  Hannah,  as  she  had  never  done  during  the  da3'^s 
of  their  courtship.  She  seemed  anxious  to  put  her  jealousy 
to  sleep,  and  with  his  help  she  had  done  so.  He  had  assured 
her  that  it  was  all  over,  that  what  he  felt  for  Mabel  was  quite 
different  from  what  he  had  felt  for  Hannah — which  was  true, 
though  he  would  have  told  any  number  of  lies  to  keep  her 
quiet.  She  had  accepted  his  assurances,  and  soon  all  her 
suspicions  seemed  to  have  passed.     The  gossip  of  High  Tilt 


120  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

did  not  travel,  except  in  a  diffused  form,  as  far  as  Bodiam — 
Hannah's  comings  and  goings  were  not  known  or  watched. 
jMabel  felt  sure  of  her  husband's  love,  and  proud  of  him  as 
he  showed  the  results  of  her  training  in  refinement. 

But  when  she  knew  that  her  child  was  coming,  a  measure 
of  this  confidence  seemed  to  go.  The  causes  were,  no  doubt, 
partly  physical,  but  also  Mabel  distrusted  her  husband  be- 
cause she  no  longer  trusted  her  own  looks.  She  told  herself 
that  she  was  "off  colour,"  and  did  not  expect  Robert  to  care 
for  her  so  much  when  she  was  looking  ill  as  when  she  was 
looking  well.  She  said  it  was  a  shame,  and  complained  bitterly 
to  her  friend  Muriel,  since  neither  Polly  nor  Mary  was  sym- 
pathetic, and  even  Elizabeth  could  not  understand  how  anyone 
could  have  Mabel's  expectations  without  great  joy. 

Muriel  agreed  that  it  was  a  shame,  and  that  men  were  all 
alike.  She  shared  Mabel's  disgust  at  the  fact  that  her  husband 
still  spent  many  of  his  evenings  at  the  King's  Head,  instead 
of  sitting  at  home  with  her. 

"The  least  he  could  do  would  be  to  give  that  up,  and  show 
me  a  little  consideration  now  I'm  so  poorly." 

"They're  all  the  same,"  said  Muriel. 

"It's  so  lonely  by  myself — I  get  tired  of  sewing." 

"Ma  belle,  if  you'll  excuse  me,  your  mistake  was  ever  letting 
him  go  out  of  an  evening.  A  man  has  no  right  to  spend  his 
evenings  in  a  public  house  once  he's  married." 

"I  couldn't  stop  him.  WTiy,  he  was  over  at  the  King's 
Head  only  a  fortnight  after  us  coming  here.  He'd  bad  habits 
before  he  married,  you  know;  but  I  must  say  I  didn't  expect 
him  to  keep  them  on.  He  says  it's  his  only  chance  of  getting 
to  know  the  farmers  round  here,  since  I  don't  care  for  them 
always  coming  to  the  house." 

"Does  he  ever  see  that  woman  he  used  to  be  so  keen  about?" 

"No — of  course  not.  Why  do  you  ask?  Who  told  you  he 
•was  keen  about  any  woman?" 

"You  did  yourself,  dear,  when  he  was  first  after  you.  And 
there's  been  a  lot  of  talk " 

"Not  since  he  married!" 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  127 

"No,  no — but  I  was  only  thinking  it  was  queer  of  him  to 
be  out  so  much.  What  does  he  do  at  the  public  house?  I 
hope  he  isn't  a  drinking  man." 

"Oh,  no — I  can't  say  I've  ever  seen  him  the  worse  since 
we  married,  though  he  used  to  take  a  drop  too  much  now 
and  then  before,  I'm  told." 

"Then  what  does  he  do  at  the  King's  Head?" 

"He  meets  the  men,  as  I've  told  you.  And  he  plays  billiards 
and  silly  games  like  darts;  and  they  have  smoking  concerts 
and  meetings — Bob  says  he's  going  to  join  the  Druids.  Muriel, 
you  don't  really  think  as  he's  after  anyone " 

"Of  course  not,  ma  belle.  I  only  wondered  why  he  went 
out  such  a  lot,  but  now  I  quite  see  it's  as  you  say,  to  meet 
the  men.  I'm  sure  he's  faithful;  he's  got  a  faithful  look  about 
him  .  .  .  and  it's  only  because  men  are  all  the  same,  so  I 
couldn't  help  thinking — especially  after  all  the  tales  there's 
been " 

"What  tales?     Not  since  we  married?" 

"No,  I  tell  you — only  the  old  ones.  I've  said  again  and 
again  I'm  sure  he's  all  right.  I  believe,  dear,  you're  getting 
fussy.  You'd  better  not  let  him  see — that  ud  be  the  very 
way  to  send  him  wrong." 

But  Mabel  could  not  help  letting  him  see.  She  was  low 
and  nervous,  and  Muriel's  words  took  a  morbid  grip  of  her 
imagination.  After  all,  it  was  very  strange.  Bob  goin;?;  out 
so  much  like  that.  She  had  always  objected  to  it,  but  he 
would  never  alter  his  habits,  even  now  when  she  was  so  ill 
and  miserable.  Of  course  there  had  been  no  question  of  any 
unfaithfulness  during  the  first  m.onths  after  their  marriage; 
she  was  quite  sure  that  he  had  gone,  as  he  had  said,  to  meet 
the  neighbouring  farmers  whom  she  did  not  like  coming  to  the 
house.  But  now  .  .  .  now  that  she  had  lost  her  looks  .  .  . 
now  that  she  was  tired  and  listless  and— she  acknowledged  it, 
though  she  excused  it — fretful?  Perhaps  he  had  taken  up 
with  someone  else  to  while  away  the  time  till  she  was  herself 
again — or  perhaps  he  had  gone  back  to  that  gipsy  woman. 
This  was  worse  to  think  of  than  the  other;  Mabel  could  have 


128  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

borne  an  unknown  rival  better  than  a  rival  she  had  already 
known  the  fear  of.  The  thought  preyed  upon  her,  and  she 
was  driven  to  voice  it  at  last. 

"Bob,  do  you  ever  see  Harmah  Iden  now?" 

He  was  reading  the  Sussex  paper  by  the  fire  before  going 
out  to  his  fields,  and  she  had  to  repeat  her  words  before  they 
reached  him.    He  started  a  little. 

"No,  of  course  I  doan't.  Wot's  maade  you  think  of  that 
all  of  a  suddint?" 

"I  dunno  .  .  .  it's  your  going  out  so  often,  and  leaving 
me." 

He  dropped  his  paper  to  his  knee  and  gaped  at  her. 

"But  I  only  go  raound  to  the  King's  Head — you  said  you 
dudn't  mind." 

"No  more  I  did  till  now — I  feel  so  poorly.  .  .  ." 

Robert  flushed.  She  was  always  spoiling  with  her  frets 
and  lamentations  his  naive  delight  in  his  approaching  father- 
hood. He  could  not  understand  why  she  was  not  as  pleased 
and  expectant  as  he.  But  he  answered  her  gently,  for  though 
she  vexed  him,  she  appealed  to  his  essentially  male  sense  of 
pity. 

"I'm  sorry  you  feel  poorly,  liddle  creature.  But  I  dudn't 
knov/  as  you  minded  my  going — I  never  stop  laate,  surelye." 

"But  the  evenings  are  the  only  quiet  time  we  have  to- 
gether." 

"\Ye  have  other  times,  and  I  only  go  wunst  and  agaun." 

"You  went  three  times  last  week." 

"Well,  we  had  the  Farmers'  Society's  meeting,  and  wunst 
it  was  the  Druids,  and  t'other  time  I  wanted  to  see  Elphee 
about  them  Portugal  roots  and  tliought  I'd  saave  myself  the 
trudge  to  Wassail." 

"I  don't  really  mind  so  long  as  you  don't  see  Hannah." 

"How  can  I  see  her?  She  aun't  there  fur  me  to  see.  She's 
a  score  and  a  hundred  miles  away " 

His  voice  which  had  begun  on  a  note  of  impatience  ended 
in  quite  a  different  key.  He  was  conscious  of  it,  and  became 
silent,  biting  his  lips. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  129 

"Bob,  you  still  care  for  her;  I  can  hear  it  in  your 
voice.  .  .  ." 

"I  doan't  care  fur  her;  you  mustn't  be  so  foolish,  kiddie, 
or  you'll  miiake  me  angry." 

Her  tears  began  to  fall. 

"I  don't  want  to  make  you  angry,  Robert;  I  know  you're 
telling  me  the  truth.  But  I  can't  help  worrying  .  .  .  you 
leave  me  such  a  lot  .  .  .  and  I  feel  so  ill " 

"You'd  lik  me  to  send  fur  a  doctor?" 

"No,  no;  there's  nothing  really  wrong — only  I'm  tired  .  .  . 
and  lonely.  .  .  ." 

His  annoyance  melted  into  compassion,  and  he  stretched 
out  his  arms  to  her.  She  came  over  to  him,  and  leaned  heavily 
against  him,  while  her  soft,  scented  hair  trailed  against  his 
face,  and  her  arms  crept  and  tightened  round  his  neck,  holding 
his  cheek  against  her  cheek. 

"I  woan't  go  out  sinst  you  doan't  lik  it,"  he  murmured. 
"I'll  stop  vrud  you  sinst  you're  feeling  ill." 

"That's  good  of  you.  Bob;  I  knew  you  didn't  understand 
how  I  felt,  or  you  wouldn't  have  gone." 

Her  lips  moved  against  his  cheek,  and  he  turned  to  her 
till  her  mouth  was  on  his.  Holding  her  close,  all  heavy  with 
the  burden  of  his  child,  he  could  for  a  moment  forget  how 
bittersweet  she  was,  and  stifle  his  longing  for  the  other  woman 
whose  ghost  she  had  called  up. 

§37 

On  a  cold  November  day  Robert  was  at  Salehurst  market, 
buying  tegs.  He  had  done  so  well  with  his  marsh  grazing 
that  he  felt  tempted  and  able  to  add  to  his  stock.  A  mellow 
satisfaction  was  upon  him,  which  seemed  to  iind  its  response 
in  the  yellow  sunshine,  gleaming  on  the  lanes  and  on  the 
drops  of  rain  that  hung  from  the  twigs  and  thorns.  The  air 
was  thick  with  a  perfume  of  moist,  trodden  earth  and  sweet, 
rotten  leaves.  The  cold  had  a  stagnant  quality  about  it;  it 
seemed  to  hold  all  the  country  in  a  bath  of  chill  sunshine. 


130  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

No  wind  stirred;  here  and  there  a  crimson  leaf  hung  motion- 
less on  the  brambles,  while  the  tufts  of  straw  swept  from 
passing  carts  by  overhanging  branches  were  unfluttered  by  any 
breeze, 

Robert  did  his  business  more  quickly  than  he  had  expected. 
He  bought  twenty  black-faced  tegs  off  a  farmer  from  Iden 
Green  and  arranged  for  them  to  be  taken  to  Campany's  by 
his  shepherd.  They  then  went  into  the  Eight  Bells  to  have 
a  drink.  The  bar  was  very  full,  and  elbows  were  jostled 
while  greetings  were  shouted  over  shoulders — as  Boorman  of 
Copt  Hall  caught  sight  of  Fix  of  Little  London,  or  Willard 
of  Boarsney  hailed  the  farmer  from  Gablehook,  or  the  sunken 
squire  from  Harlakenden,  who  went  to  market  with  his  own 
beasts,  passed  the  time  of  day  with  Scales  Crouch  of  Mount- 
pumps  or  Darwell  Hole.  It  was  a  great  gathering  of  farmers 
and  cattle-dealers,  and  Robert  soon  parted  from  his  first 
companion.  He  was  glad  to  meet  on  his  new  footing  of  re- 
spectability and  small  prosperity  the  yeomen  who  had  de- 
spised him  in  his  unsettled  days.  He  had  a  drink  with  Shovell 
and  a  drink  with  Pont,  then  suddenly  he  noticed  that  Darius 
Ripley  had  come  into  the  bar. 

It  gave  him  a  shock.  He  had  not  thought  that  TXarius 
was  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  none  of  the  gipsies  had  been 
at  the  market.  If  Darius  was  here,  Hannah  could  not  be 
far  off;  anyhow,  no  further  than  Blindgrooms.  Robert  felt 
his  heart  turn  sick;  he  had  thought  her  four-score  miles  away, 
beyond  Chichester,  and  here  she  must  be  quite  close  to  him,  per- 
haps at  the  very  door.  He  nodded  to  Darius,  who  nodded 
and  grinned  to  him. 

The  next  minute  he  found  himself  growing  restless.  The 
bar,  with  all  the  broad  backs  and  the  broad  vowels  slurring 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  with  the  kindly  reek  of  beer  and  fog 
of  pipes,  had  become  inexpressibly  stuffy  and  tedious.  He 
made  some  inane  remark  to  Pont  and  Shovell,  and  edged 
away  from  them  towards  Darius. 

"Good  day,"  he  said. 

"Good  day,"  said  the  gipsy. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  131 


liT 

J. 


dudn't  know  as  you  wur  in  these  parts.  Are  you  here 
to  sell  horses?" 

"Are  you  here  to  buy  one?" 

"I  aun't.  But  I  know  your  game,  surelye.  You've  a  string 
of  cobs  at  the  back  of  this  pub,  I  reckon." 

"I've  brought  some  good  little  gryes  over  from  Hampshire, 
strong  as  any  of  your  overgrown  draymen  in  these  parts. 
Would  you  like  to  look  at  'em?" 

"Xo.    Is  Hannah  here?" 

"She  is  outside  this  very  same  public-house.  She  could 
not  come  in  because  of  the  baby." 

"The  baby!" 

"Yes,  we  have  a  fine  brat — a  Christian  brat,  called  Gwen- 
dolen Aurora.  .  .  .  Good  day,  Mr.  Beatup — yes,  I've  got 
some  nice  little  nags  in  the  square.  .  .  ." 

Robert  was  jostled  away.  He  looked  over  the  men's  heads 
at  the  open  door,  then  suddenly  made  for  it.  He  knew  that 
if  he  stopped  to  think  he  would  stay  w^here  he  was,  so  he 
didn't  think. 

He  could  see  no  one  outside.  He  stood  for  a  minute  in 
the  open  door\Yay  looking  out  into  the  street,  where  the  wan 
sunshine  lay  spilt  among  the  shadows  of  the  gables,  then  a 
movement  at  his  side  made  him  turn  his  head,  and  he  saw 
Hannah  quite  close  to  him,  leaning  up  against  the  wall.  She 
stood  queerly  motionless,  a  wrapped,  brown  figure,  carrying 
her  baby  in  her  shawl,  with  the  dead  leaves  drifted  up  round 
her  feet.  Her  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him,  and  for  a  moment 
neither  of  them  spoke. 

Then  he  said  "Good  day"  to  her,  as  he  had  said  it  to  her 
husband.     She  answered  "Good  day." 

"Aun't  you  cold  standing  outside?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  mustn't  come  in  because  of  this  little  one.  It  is  the 
law." 

He  had  come  close  to  her  and  stood  staring  at  the  baby. 
It  was  a  very  small  baby,  brown  and  wrinkled.  It  struck 
liim  that  it  looked  more  intensely  "furrin"   than  either  its 


132  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

father  or  its  mother.  On  its  wrist  was  a  tiny  bracelet,  which 
accentuated  this  foreign  look. 

"How  old  is  it?"  he  asked  mechanically. 

"Close  on  four  months." 

He  could  see  her  hand  under  the  baby's  body,  and  there 
was  something  strained  and  tender  about  it,  something  which 
spoke  of  a  quality  in  Hannah  which  he  had  never  been  allowed 
to  see.  His  gaze  travelled  slowly  up  from  the  baby  to  the 
mother's  breast,  and  then  rested  fearfully  on  her  face.  .  .  . 

His  heart  throbbed  so  loud  that  it  seemed  as  if  she  must 
hear  it.  But  he  did  not  speak.  He  felt  for  a  moment  urged 
to  voice  his  feeling,  his  longing  for  her  a  hundredfold  in- 
creased now  that  he  saw  that  she  would  have  loved  his 
child.  But  he  kept  silent  partly  out  of  hopelessness,  out  of 
the  knowledge  tha,t  she  belonged  to  another  man  and  to  this 
child  in  her  arms,  partly  out  of  what  was  not  so  much  loyalty 
as  acceptance  of  the  fact  that  he  belonged  to  another  woman 
and  to  a  child  that  was  yet  unborn. 

He  suddenly  became  aware  that  Darius  Ripley  stood  be- 
hind them.  One  or  two  people  had  come  out  while  he  talked 
to  Hannah,  but  his  back  had  been  turned  and  he  had  noticed 
no  one. 

"She's  a  fine  brat,  ain't  she?"  said  Darius. 

"Valiant,"  said  Robert. 

"Do  you  think  she's  like  me  or  like  her  mother?" 

"More  like  you,  maybe,"  for  the  baby's  smallness  suggested 
rather  the  little  husband  than  the  wife,  who  was  a  large  woman 
for  her  race— though  by  its  face  it  would  seem  the  child  of 
neither,  but  some  dim  ancestor  of  them  both. 

"I'll  take  her  now,"  said  Darius,  "and  you  can  go  and  have 
a  drink,  my  dear." 

"Thank  you,  Darius,"  said  Hannah  graciously.  "I  will  go 
in  if  Mr.  Robert  Fuller  will  go  with  me.  I  do  not  like  going 
alone  into  rough  company." 

Robert  took  her  into  the  bar  and  stood  her  a  glass  of  six 
ale  and  some  stout.  He  saw  the  farmers  staring  at  him  curi- 
ously, and  that  they  spoke  in  each  other's  ears.  But  he  did 
not  care  about  appearances — his  whole  being  was  concentrated 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  133 

on  savouring  his  few  moments  with  Hannah.  He  did  not  speak, 
but  stood  staring  at  her  while  she  drank  her  liquor,  his  own 
glass  on  the  counter  untasted. 

"Well,  I  can't  say  as  you're  lively  company,"  said  Hannah 
as  she  went  out,  wiping  her  mouth  on  her  shawl.  "But  I 
thanks  you  kindly  for  the  refreshment.  And  now  Darius  and 
me  must  be  moving  on,  for  we  have  business  in  this  place." 

"Good-bye,"  said  Robert  sheepishly,  looking  at  the  ground. 

"Good-bye,  Mr.  Robert  Fuller,  and  pleased  to  have  met 
you." 

They  went  off  up  the  street  towards  the  market-place,  and 
he  set  out  for  Bodingmares.  He  felt  curiously  tired,  and 
when  the  farmhouse  dinner  was  set  he  experienced  a  quite 
unprecedented  distaste  for  food.  Jim  rallied  him  briskly,  and 
Mary  chose  to  be  affronted,  saying  she  knew  that  the  beef- 
steak pie  was  a  bit  underdone,  but  not  so  much  that  he  need 
grumble,  and  she  was  sure  Mabel's  pies  must  often  go  wrong 
in  that  oven,  which  wanted  an  extra  brick  as  she'd  told  her 
a  dunnamany  times.  He  received  their  reproaches  in  silence, 
and  stnick  them  as  unusually  heavy  and  stupid.  They  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  must  have  had  a  drop  too  much,  just 
enough  to  make  him  sleepy. 

He  rode  off  in  the  early  afternoon.  The  sky  had  cleared 
and  pale  lakes  of  shallow  blue  were  spread  round  the  sun, 
and  seemed  to  be  reflected  in  the  light,  giving  the  surface  of 
the  lanes,  the  roofs  of  the  bams,  the  autumn  patchwork  of 
the  fields  a  strange  aqueous  quality,  as  of  the  floor  of  a  clear, 
shallow  pond.  Robert  took  the  road  that  goes  up  from  the 
Rother  by  Salehurst  church,  and  then  past  Bantony  and 
Churchsettle  to  Haiselman's  Farm,  Prawl's  Farm  and  Bodiam. 
He  went  slowly,  his  mind  thrown  into  a  clear,  sorrowful  trance 
by  the  rhythmic  movements  of  the  horse  under  him,  the  clop 
and  suck  of  hoofs  in  the  thin  mire  that  scummed  the  lane,  and 
the  creak  of  saddle-leather. 

His  memories  grew  in  the  pale  light — sharp,  regretful  things 
on  which  the  tears  hung  like  rain  on  thorns.  They  were 
memories  of  this  lane,  of  walks  in  it  long  ago,  when,  with  his 
arm  round  her  waist  and  her  head  against  his  shoulder,  they 


134  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

had  wandered  up  Silver  Hill  in  the  reddening  twilight  of  the 
young  moon,  or  had  seen  the  brownish  gleam  of  the  harvest 
fields  beyond  the  hedge,  while  the  dusk  slowly  dredged  the 
earth  of  light  and  spilt  it  in  glowing  sparks  about  the  sky. 
He  could  feel  her  breath  on  his  cheek,  feel  the  warmth  of  her 
against  his  arm  thrust  under  her  shawl,  and  hear  her  loving 
words  that  were  so  few. 

His  thoughts  of  her  seemed  to  swim  in  the  watery  sunshine 
of  October;  they  were  part  of  the  autumn  decay,  of  the 
memories  of  summer.  .  .  .  He  wished  he  had  not  seen  her 
standing  there,  with  the  dead  leaves  drifted  up  round  her 
feet.  She  was  gone,  gone — she  would  never  be  beautiful  and 
warm  and  loving  for  him  again.  .  .  .  He  must  forget  her — 
he  had  forgotten  her — he  had  married  a  wife,  he  had  begotten 
a  child,  he  had  established  a  house — then  why  had  she  come 
back?     She  was  only  a  ghost.  .  ,  . 

Suddenly  he  heard  himself  hailed. 

"Hello,  Mus'  Fuller." 

It  was  Elphee  of  Wassail  and  Crouch  of  Ethnam,  both 
casual  comrades  of  the  King's  Head,  now  on  their  way  home 
from  Salehurst  in  Elphee's  gig. 

"Never  saw  you  at  the  market." 

"I  wur  up  in  the  square  by  the  station." 

"Did  any  business?" 

"Bought  a  dozen  tegs  off  Virgo." 

"Bad  day  fur  sheep,  I  thought." 

"Tedious." 

"You  look  as  if  you  had  a  bit  of  a  cold." 

"I  mun  have  caught  cold,  surelye.    1  feel  all  bunged  up." 

"Come  and  have  a  drink  at  the  Red  Lion — thur's  naun  lik 
a  whisky  fur  kipping  the  cold  out." 

They  were  now  close  to  the  inn  at  the  throws  by  K'gh 
Wigsell.  Robert  would  have  been  glad  to  get  rid  of  his  com- 
panions, but  the  next  moment  he  reflected  that  a  little  cheerful 
society  and  a  drink  or  two  might  keep  out  something  beside 
the  cold.  There  were  still  two  miles  to  Campany's  Hatch, 
and  if  they  were  to  be  anything  like  the  first  three  .  .  . 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  135 

§  38 

By  the  time  he  reached  home  he  felt  altogether  jollier  and 
better.  He  had  had  three  drinks,  and  had  talked  a  great 
deal  about  tegs  and  wethers  and  the  price  of  wheat  and  the 
chances  of  tariff  reform.  Hannah's  image  had  become  fogged 
in  his  memory,  and  he  had  told  himself  several  times  that 
'•wot  wur  done  wur  finished."  As  he  rode  up  the  farmstead 
drive  in  the  thick  sunless  dusk  his  heart  began  to  go  out  to- 
wards Mabel.  It  would  be  good  to  hold  her  in  his  arms 
again  .  .  .  after  all,  she  was  what  he  had  got,  while  Hannah 
was  only  what  another  man  had  got.  .  .  . 

He  found  her  waiting  in  the  dining-room,  where  tea  was 
laid.  She  had  not  yet  lit  the  lamp,  and  her  hair  sprayed  a 
queer  golden  light  into  the  dusk;  her  face  looked  whiter  and 
rather  hollow. 

"Hallo,  my  duck."  He  clasped  her  to  him  rather  boister- 
ously, and  she  pushed  him  off. 

"Why  are  you  so  late?" 

"Dudn't  know  as  I  wur  laate " 

"It's  past  five,  and  you  promised  me  to  come  home  directly 
after  dinner.  IVe  been  waiting  for  you.  Where  have  you 
been?" 

"I'm  sorry,  kid."  Once  more  his  arm  went  out  to  take  her, 
but  she  edged  away. 

"Sit  down  and  have  your  tea — the  kettle's  boiling." 

He  sat  down — obedient  as  she  had  made  him  in  small 
things. 

"Where  have  you  been  all  this  time?"  she  repeated. 

"I  wur  up  at  the  market,  and  bought  a  dozen  good  tegs 
off  Virgo  of  Iden  Green — then  I  went  and  had  dinner." 

"But  that  shouldn't  have  made  you  as  late  as  this." 

"I  fell  in  wud  Elphee  and  Crouch  on  the  way  hoame,  and 
we  went  into  the  Red  Lion  and  had  a  whisky." 

"Yes,  you  smell  of  whisky." 

He  felt  vexed  at  her  shrewishness — was  this  the  way  she 
received  her  husband  after  a  daylong  absence?     Then  he  re- 


136  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

membered  that  she  was  feeling  poorly,  and  that  perhaps  she 
had  fretted  and  grown  anxious  about  him.  He  put  out  his  hand 
and  fondled  her. 

"Don't  go  pawing  me  at  meals,  Robert,  I've  told  you  it 
isn't  manners.  You  haven't  said  anything  about  the  market. 
How's  Jim  and  Mary?" 

He  told  her.  It  seemed  to  him  that  she  looked  very  helpless 
and  haggard.  Was  she  going  to  be  ill?  Had  anything  gone 
wrong? 

"You're  looking  unaccountable  poorly,  duck.  Has  anything 
upset  you?" 

"No,  no.  I  feel  perfectly  well.  Whom  did  you  speak  to 
at  Salehurst?" 

"Oh,  Shovell  and  Cox  and  Pont  and  Willard." 

"No  one  else?" 

"Not  that  I  remember,  unless  it  wur  Ebony." 

"You  liar!" 

The  words  came  in  a  low  voice  from  between  lips  that 
seemed  suddenly  white  and  thin.    Robert  gaped  at  her. 

"You  liar!"  she  repeated,  clenching  her  hands  upon  the 
table. 

"W-wot  d'you  mean?" 

"What  I  say.  You're  telling  me  a  pack  of  lies.  You  saw 
Hannah  Ripley  at  Salehurst  market.  You  were  seen  speaking 
to  her  outside  the  Eight  Bells." 

"Well,  wot  of  it?" 

"What  of  it? — that's  good.  You'll  make  out  as  there  was 
nothing  in  it,  I  suppose.  Why  did  you  tell  me  all  those  lies 
if  there  was  nothing  in  it?" 

"Thur  wur  nothing  in  it." 

"Oh,  you  horrid  liar!" 

"Shut  up.  You  stop  calling  me  naames.  I've  a  right  to 
spik  to  whom  I  please." 

"And  then  tell  me  lies  about  it." 

"You'll  drive  me  silly  wud  your  lies.  I  don't  tell  more'n 
you." 

"That's  right — abuse  me.  You're  in  a  temper  because  you're 
foimd  out.    You  didn't  think  that  you'd  be  seen  and  the  news 


GREEN  APPLE  RAR\  EST  137 

taken  to  me.    Now  everyone  ull  laugh  at  me  and  say  as  my 
husband's  gone  back  to  his " 

"Be  quiet!"  he  thundered. 

"But  it's  true,"  she  whined.  "You  wouldn't  have  told  me 
you'd  never  met  her  if  there'd  been  no  harm  in  your  meeting." 

"I  swear  there  was  no  harm." 

"Then  why  did  you  tell  me  you  hadn't  seen  her?" 

"I  dudn't  tell  you  I  hadn't  seen  her." 

"You  did." 

"I  dudn't." 

"You  did."    She  began  to  cry. 

It  was  their  first  real  quarrel.  They  had  had  bickerings^ 
but  these  had  never  worked  up  into  anything  serious.  Now 
the  weather  was  definitely  set  for  storms — Mabel  was  in  a 
morbid,  depressed  condition,  anxious,  strained  and  jealous, 
while  Robert  was  reacting  from  a  day  of  shock  and  trouble, 
imperfectly  buried  under  three  whiskies.  This  time  her  tears 
did  not  touch  him,  as  they  had  hitherto  never  failed  to  do; 
they  seemed  to  come  so  easily  compared  with  his  own. 

"Adone-do  wud  your  crying — it  aun't  no  use.  You're  naun 
but  a  cross-grained,  tedious,  jealous  woman." 

"And  what  sort  of  a  man  are  you?  .  .  .  going  about  with 
other  women  .  .  .  while  I  have  to  keep  at  home  .  .  .  because 
of  your  child  that's  coming." 

Robert's  fist  came  down  with  a  crash  upon  the  table,  so 
that  the  tea-things  rattled  and  the  cooling  tea  swished  in  the 
cups.     Mabel's  eyes  jerked  suddenly  wide  and  dry. 

"Shut  your  mouth,"  he  roared  at  her,  "sinst  you  can't  open 
it  except  to  spik  lies.  'Go  wud  other  womeni'  Oh,  my  Lord, 
I've  stuck  to  you  better'n  you  deserve  ...  I  who  went  no 
nearer  another  woman  than  to  look  at  her  baby." 

His  face  twisted  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Surely 
he  wasn't  going  to  cry — no,  not  before  Mabel  ...  it  was 
that  sudden  picture  of  Hannah  that  had  come — standing  out- 
side the  door. 

Mabel  rose  scornfully  to  her  feet. 

"I  believe  you're  drunk — you've  been  drinking  with  that 
creature.    I'm  not  going  to  stop  and  listen  to  you  any  longer. 


138  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

You're  a  beastly  cad,  and  I  shan't  speak  to  you  again  till  you 
explain  and  apologize." 

"I've  bin  explaining  ever  sinst  we  started  tea." 
"Till  you  explain  truthfully,"  she  enlarged,  and  walked  out 
of  the  room. 

Something  in  her  manner,  contemptuous  and  disbelieving, 
exasperated  him  to  fury.  At  least  she  should  lose  her  self- 
respect  as  well  as  he.  He  sprang  after  her  as  she  was  shutting 
the  door,  wrenching  it  out  of  her  hand.  His  flushed  face  and 
breath  smelling  of  spirits  gave  her  a  sudden  sense  of  terror. 
She  ran  down  the  passage  and  upstairs  into  her  bedroom, 
locking  the  door  in  his  face. 

§  39 

For  some  moments  Robert  stood  outside  on  the  landing 
and  exhausted  his  not  very  large  vocabulary  of  abuse.  Mabel 
maintained  her  maddening  superiority  of  silence,  and  Bob  was 
on  the  verge  of  kicking  the  door  open  and  humbling  her  by 
physical  force  ■yvhen  a  loud  knocking  sounded  below.  He  was 
not  so  far  gone  as  to  be  insensible  of  witnesses,  and,  smother- 
ing his  feelings,  went  down  to  open  the  door. 

It  was  a  young  fellow  from  Eyelid  Farm,  called  with  a  bag 
of  sharps,  and  all  a-grin. 

"Fine  evening,  aun't  it — Missus  well?" 

"Middling  well." 

"I  heard  you  talking  as  I  caum  araound — that's  two  shillun 
chaange,  aun't  it?" 

"That's  it.     Good  night." 

"Good  night." 

Still  grinning,  the  youth  walked  off.  Robert  stared  after 
him  with  blackness  in  his  soul. 

"If  I  stay  any  longer  in  this  house,  I'll  murder  her." 

He  rammed  on  his  cap  and  went  out.  The  cool  air  was 
pleasant  on  his  hot  face  ...  his  face  felt  very  hot  and  puffy; 
he  wondered  if  it  was  true  what  Mabel  had  said  and  that 
he  really  was  a  bit  on,  as  they  say.  He'd  only  had  three 
small  whiskies,  but  on  a  nearly  empty  stomach,  and  he  had 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  139 

been  so  terribly  upset.  .  .  .  No,  he  didn't  think  he  was  drunk 
— anyhow,  the  liquor  was  not  in  his  legs,  he  could  walk 
straight,  and  he  could  see  straight,  too.  He  was  only  a  bit 
excited.  It  was  that  Mabel,  that  wTetched  girl — there  was 
something  altogether  goading  and  maddening  about  her;  her 
tears,  her  silence,  her  reproaches,  her  lies,  had  all  been  equally 
exasperating. 

He  went  into  the  King's  Head.  It  was  about  half  a  mile 
from  Campany's  Hatch,  and  seemed  his  best  refuge  at  present. 
He  wasn't  going  back  to  Mabel;  if  he  came  within  a  yard 
of  her  now  he'd  lay  violent  hands  on  her,  and  there  would 
be  a  row.  This  was  worse  than  being  alone  .  .  ,  he'd  have 
been  better  off  if  he  hadn't  married  her.  For  the  first  time 
since  his  marriage,  he  had  a  definite  reaction  of  regret,  a 
sudden  longing  for  his  free  days,  even  though  they  had  been 
consumed  by  unsatisfied  love.  He  still  loved  and  was  still 
unsatisfied,  and  had  into  the  bargain  a  spiteful  yokefellow 
who  watched  for  his  stumblings.  Drat  her  I  She  was  a  bitch 
— as  he'd  told  her,  as  the  farmer's  son  from  Eyelid  had  heard 
him  tell  her.    Oh,  damn! 

He  sat  sulkily  drinking  a  glass  of  gin  and  water.  There 
were  one  or  two  men  in  the  bar,  who  passed  remarks  about 
the  weather  and  the  crops,  or  asked  him  if  he  had  done  good 
business  at  Salehurst  market.  But  he  did  not  feel  inclined 
to  be  sociable.  He  wondered  who  it  was  who  had  told  Mabel 
about  his  meeting  Hannah,  and  exactly  how  much,  or  how 
much  more,  he  had  told  her.  It  was  an  added  bitterness  to 
realize  that  he  wished  her  accusations  had  been  well-founded 
instead  of  being  just  the  jealous  ravings  of  a  woman  who  knew 
nothing  about  the  matter;  who  did  not  know  that  Hannah 
could  never  be  his,  that  she  did  not  care  twopence  for  him, 
though  he  cared  the  world  for  her,  that  his  love  for  her  was 
merely  a  hopeless  aching,  a  hunger  that  could  never  be  satis- 
fied. 

He  had  two  more  glasses  of  gin  and  water.  They  kept  the 
cold  out — out  of  his  heart.  But  drinking  did  not  improve 
his  temper.  The  bar  began  to  fill  up  as  the  hour  grew  later — 
farmers  and  smallholders  from  the  neighbourhood  came  in 


140  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

for  an  evening  glass  and  greeted  him  neighbourly.  His  an- 
swers grew  surly  and  short;  he  did  not  want  anyone  to  speak 
to  him,  and  he  felt  that  everybody  must  know  that  he  had 
had  words  witli  Mabel — that  boy  from  Eyelid  must  have 
told  them.  It  was  all  crumbling — the  illusion  of  his  mar- 
riage and  his  respectability  ...  the  farmer  of  Campany's 
Hatch,  a  steady,  go-ahead  young  chap  with  a  pretty  wife  .  .  . 
seen  making  love  to  a  gipsy  outside  the  Eight  Bells,  and  then 
heard  calling  his  wife  a  bitch  and  threatening  to  break  open 
her  door.  .  .  . 

It  was  not  like  him  to  sit  drinking  in  a  comer  by  himself. 

"Mus'  Fuller  doan't  look  lik  a  man  wot's  just  bought  a 
good  lot  of  tegs,"  said  Comfort  of  Lossenham;  "found  the 
itch  in  'em,  maaster,  now  you've  got  'em  hoame?" 

"Wot  d'you  mean  by  that?"  Robert's  fist  clenched  menac- 
ingly on  the  table. 

"Mean?    Naun  but  wot  I  say,  surelye." 

The  man  looked  surprised.  "Wot's  upset  Fuller?"  he  asked 
Burch  of  Lomas. 

"I  dunno;  he's  got  a  sore  head  to-night.  .  .  .  Maybe  a 
glass  too  much." 

Robert  caught  the  last  words. 

"That's  it — you  go  abusing  me.  You  may  say  I'm  drunk. 
I  aun't  drunk.     I'm  sober." 

"Surelye,  Mus'  Fuller,  surelye,"  said  Burch,  anxious  to 
keep  the  peace. 

"Then  wot  fur  dud  you  say  as  I  wur  drunk?" 

"I  never  said  as  you  wur  drunk." 

"You  dud — I  heard  you.  I  know  as  you  all  talk  bad  of 
me,  and  say  as  I  row  my  missus  and  go  wud  the  gipsies.  I 
know  it." 

"Mus'  Fuller " 

The  grave,  respectable  heart  of  the  yeoman  of  Lomas  was 
deeply  grieved  by  such  conduct  in  his  favourite  bar.  Robert 
looked  ready  to  fight  anyone.  The  two  farmers  edged  away 
from  the  table. 

"It's  true  wot  he's  saying,"  said  a  young  man  who  had 
just  come  in;  "he's  had  a  row  wud  his  missus.     Pilbeam  of 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  Mi 

Eyelid  wur  raound  at  Campany's  and  heard  him  hollering  at 
her  summat  tar'ble." 

"Dear,  dear,"  said  Comfort,  glancing  back  at  Robert,  who 
to  prove  his  sobriety  had  ordered  a  whisky, 

"He  shudn't  ought  to  have  no  more  to  drink,"  said  Burch 
in  an  undertone  to  the  landlord;  "he's  had  too  much  as  it  is. 
Maybe  he'll  go  back  and  wallop  her." 

"I've  never  seen  him  the  wuss  for  liquor,"  said  the  landlord, 
"though  I'm  told  as  he  often  got  tight  over  in  High  Tilt.  It's 
a  shaame  as  he  shud  go  to  pieces  all  lik  this.  I  waonder  whose 
fault  it  wur," 

"Hers,"  said  Comfort;  "she's  a  minx." 

"He  aun't  got  a  dove's  temper  nuther,  I'll  warrant.  He 
sims  unaccountable  black  to-night.  And  I  doan't  lik  that 
swelled  look  he's  got," 

"I'll  tell  Daisy  not  to  sarve  him  agaun,"  said  the  landlord, 

"He'll  maake  a  row." 

"Let  him.    I've  my  licence  to  think  of,  surelye." 

So  when  Robert's  glass  came  up  again  to  the  counter  he 
was  told  that  he  had  had  enough  for  to-night. 

"You're  meaning  I'm  drunk?" 

"I  never  said  so.  Only  you  doan't  look  well,  and  the  liquor 
doan't  act  praaper  in  you." 

"I'll  drink  wot  I  order  and  pay  for." 

"You'll  drink  no  more  in  my  public  to-night.  Come  now, 
Mus'  Fuller,  pull  yourself  together  and  go  home.  If  you've 
had  a  liddle  tiff  wud  your  wife  you'll  maake  it  up  better 
sober," 

"Who  says  I've  had  a  tiff  wud  my  wife?" 

"No  one's  said  it." 

"You  said  it,  and  it's  a  hemmed  lie." 

"Well,  well,  I  beg  your  pardon — only  you  git  off  hoame, 
Mus*  Fuller.  You  aun't  yourself  to-night.  Maybe  one  of 
these  gentlemen  ull  see  you  part  of  the  way." 

"Whosumdever  tries  to  go  wud  me,  I'll  land  him  one  in 
the  guts." 

"Nobody  ull  go  wud  you — only  be  off!"  The  landlord  was 
losing  his  temper. 


142  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Robert  stood  up  and  walked  shakily  towards  the  door.  He 
had  suddenly  discovered  that  he  had  a  violent  headache  and 
felt  very  sick.    He  would  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air. 

"Mark  you,  I  aun't  a-going  because  of  you,"  he  said  thickly. 

Nobody  said  a  word.  The  decent  farmers  round  Bodiam 
were  shocked  at  such  behaviour  from  one  of  their  number. 
Of  course  Robert  Fuller  had  come  into  the  neighbourhood 
with  a  tail  of  doubtful  history  behind  him,  but  he  had  always 
behaved  respectably,  and  though  not  exactly  an  engaging  chap, 
had  been  on  friendly  terms  with  most  of  them.  He  belonged 
to  the  Druids  and  the  Farmers'  Club.  .  .  .  No  one  had  ever 
dreamed  of  seeing  him  like  this. 

"I'm  sorry  fur  his  poor  missus,"  a  young  man — the  son  of 
the  tenant  of  Linkhill — whispered  behind  his  hand.. 

The  next  minute  he  lay  on  the  floor,  with  the  blood  pouring 
from  his  nose. 

There  was  a  muddle  of  cries  and  comments:  "Shaame! 
shaame!"  "Catch  hold  of  un,"  "Fetch  the  police,"  "No,  no, 
chuck  him  out!"    "Put  him  in  the  road." 

Robert  lashed  out  furiously,  but  numbers  overpowered  him. 
He  felt  a  blow  on  his  cheek,  just  under  his  eye,  and  staggered. 
Then  he  found  himself  gripped  by  the  scruff  and  elbows  and 
ignominiously  run  out  of  the  bar.  A  violent  push  sent  him 
staggering  across  the  road,  and  the  door  slammed  to  behind 
him. 

For  a  moment  he  stood  in  the  square  of  yellow  light  that 
came  from  under  the  taproom  blind,  and  shook  his  fist  and 
cursed.  He  did  not  know  what  he  said,  he  was  senseless  with 
fury  and  drink.  Then  he  turned  and  walked  away.  He  did 
not  care  where  he  was  going  ...  he  was  going  to  Hannah 
...  he  did  not  know  where  he  was  going  .  .  .  the  road 
seemed  to  pour  under  his  feet  in  a  grey  stream,  the  hedges 
rose  and  fell  like  waves  .  .  .  lights  came  and  glared  in  his 
eyes  ...  a  trotting  horse,  and  cries  of  "Can't  you  see  whur 
you're  going?"  No,  he  couldn't  see  .  .  .  he  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment and  cursed  them  after  they  had  gone  by.  Then  he 
went  on  again  .  .  .  the  road  still  slipped  and  flowed  under 
his  feet  ...  he  must  be  walkin?  on  water  .  .  .  like  Peter 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  143 

walking  to  Christ  ...  oh!  his  head  suddenly  crashed  into 
something  hard  and  solid  in  his  way.  He  fell,  and  the  last 
of  his  muddled  consciousness  went  up  in  a  blaze  of  light, 
followed  by  darkness. 

§  40 

"I  have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting  love,  therefore  with 
loving  kindness  have  I  drawn  thee." 

The  words  were  written  in  black  letters  on  a  clean  sheet 
of  paper  that  was  nailed  into  his  forehead.  They  were  written 
in  darkness  on  light.  They  were  written  in  light  on  darkness. 
They  burnt  him  up;  he  was  a  little  cinder  and  he  smouldered 
in  them.  Oh,  how  it  hurt!  ...  I  am  tormented  in  this  flame. 
It  is  the  love  of  God.  I  am  a  little  cinder  burning  in  it.  Oh, 
oh,  oh,  how  it  hurts!   ... 

"I  have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting  love,  therefore  with 
loving  kindness  have  I  drawn  thee." 

That  was  odd — for  it  was  all  quite  natural,  really — just  a 
text  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  his  eyes  were  open,  staring  at  it. 
He  had  thought  those  words  were  inside  him — that  he  was 
inside  them — and  all  the  time  they  were  only  hanging  on  the 
wall.  It  was  a  text — he  might  have  known  it — and  quite  a 
pretty  text,  too,  with  a  robin  in  the  corner,  and  some  yellow 
flowers.  He  did  not  know  they  had  a  text  in  the  house.  He 
could  not  remember,  his  head  ached  so  .  .  .  and  it  must  be 
nearly  time  to  get  up  ...  he  must  pull  himself  together. 
Where  was  Mabel?  She  had  got  up  already — he  could  hear 
her  moving  about  in  the  room.  .  .  .  But  that  wasn't  their 
room,  it  was  quite  different — different  furniture  and  different 
paper  on  the  walls.    Where  on  earth  had  he  got  to? 

"Mabel!" 

"Bob!" 

His  name  came  in  accents  of  tearful  and  relieved  surprise. 
The  next  moment  she  was  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  between 
him  and  the  text.  Her  hair  was  untidy,  and  her  face  marked 
with  tears. 

"Wot's  happened?"  he  asked  feebly. 

"Don't  worry,  Bob.     It's  all  right  now." 


144  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"My  head  aches." 

"I  expect  it  does."  There  was  an  inflection  in  her  voice 
which  irritated  some  sleeping  memory.    He  awoke  still  further. 

"Whur  am  I?  This  aun't  hoame.  Whur  have  you  taaken 
me?" 

"I  haven't  taken  you  anywhere.  Don't  get  excited.  The 
doctor  said  you  were  to  keep  quiet." 

"The  doctor?    Then  I've  bin  ill?" 

"I  should  think  you  had." 

"How  long?" 

"Nearly  two  days  now." 

"Am  I  in  hospital?" 

"No,  you're  in  a  private  house.  A  gentleman  found  you 
lying  in  the  road." 

"Lying  in  the  road?  How  on  earth  did  I  get  into  th" 
road?" 

"Come,  Bob,  you're  kidding  me.    You  must  remember." 

"I  doan't  remember  naun." 

"You  don't  remember  going  to  the  King's  Head?" 

"I've  bin  to  the  King's  Head  a  dunnamany  times.  I  doan't 
recall  naun  special  about  it." 

Mabel  looked  at  him  carefully. 

"They  say  you  had  too  much  to  drink." 

Robert's  sensations  bore  out  this  verdict.  But  why  should 
he  have  got  drunk  all  of  a  sudden  after  keeping  sober  for 
two  years?  .  .  .  He  saw  a  picture — a  curtain  seemed  to  be 
pulled  back  far  away  at  the  back  of  his  mind  and  showed 
him  a  queer  little  picture  like  a  dream,  of  Hannah  Iden 
standing  outside  the  door  of  a  public-house,  wrapped  in  a 
brown  shawl  and  carrying  a  baby  .  .  .  rays  of  light  flowed 
out  of  the  picture,  lighting  up  dim  comers,  showing  him  things 
he  had  forgotten.  He  saw  himself  having  tea  with  Mabel  in 
the  dining-room,  with  a  queer  dusk  lighting  up  the  cups  and 
plates  and  her  face  that  was  haggard  and  angry  .  .  .  then  he 
found  himself  on  the  landing  outside  her  door,  shouting  abuse 
at  her,  wanting  to  hurt  her  .  .  .  then  he  could  not  remember 
any  more,  and  he  didn't  want  to.  He  turned  his  head  on  the 
pillow  and  groaned. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  145 

"Go  to  sleep,"  said  Mabel. 

"But  I  want  to  know  whur  I  am." 

"I've  told  you.  You're  in  a  gentleman's  house,  in  Goud- 
hurst." 

"Goudhurst!  That's  a  hem  far  away.  Wotsumdever  did 
he  bring  me  there  fur?" 

"He  found  you  in  the  road  at  the  bottom  of  Megrims  Hill 
— you'd  hit  your  head  against  a  telegraph  post.  He  brought 
you  on  to  Goudhurst  because  he  didn't  know  where  you  be- 
longed, and  he's  some  sort  of  a  minister  here." 

"Wot's  his  naame?" 

"The  Reverend  Beeman.  He's  got  a  nice  house,  and  you're 
lucky." 

"How  dud  you  find  me?" 

Mabel  became  tearful. 

"I  had  an  awful  night,  with  you  gone  off  like  that,  and 
me  not  knowing  what  had  become  of  you,  and  poorly  as  I 
was  ...  it  might  have  been  bad  for  me.  But  early  the  next 
morning  Mr.  Crouch  came  round  and  said  that  the  postman 
had  heard  a  man  had  been  picked  up  on  the  Sandhurst  road 
and  taken  to  Goudhurst,  so  I  hired  a  motor-car  from  the  inn 
— it  cost  me  a  pound." 

Robert  could  not  remember — and  certainly  did  not  want  to 
remember — the  extent  of  his  misdoings.  But  a  large,  vague 
sense  of  guilt  lay  heavily  and  indefinitely  on  him,  and  he 
murmured : 


"I'm  sorry,  Mabel." 


§  41 


After  that  he  slept  for  a  little,  and  when  he  woke  he  could 
hear  a  man's  voice  in  the  room.  It  was  a  deep  heavy  voice, 
with  a  curious  emphasis  about  it,  as  if  every  word  were 
weighted  with  the  speaker's  dignity.  "Yes,"  it  said,  "the 
blind — the  cord  is  broken — perhaps  a  nail  would  be  of  use." 
Somehow  the  remark  took  on  a  deep  significance,  the  silence 
trembled  with  it.  Robert  lifted  himself  on  his  elbow  and 
looked  round,  but  the  speaker  was  standing  right  behind  him. 


146  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

and  he  could  see  no  one.  The  movement  caused  him  acute 
pain  in  his  head,  and  he  fell  back  with  a  groan. 

"Ah,"  said  the  voice,  and  a  creaking  footstep  came  solemnly 
to  the  bedside. 

Robert  looked  up  and  saw  an  elderly  man  with  white  hair 
falling  from  a  bald  crown  almost  to  his  shoulders.  He  had 
a  large,  heavy  face,  curiously  unwrinkled  for  his  age,  with  a 
high  pinkish  colour  on  the  cheeks.  A  little  white  bow  was 
tied  under  his  chin,  and  he  wore  a  careful  suit  of  black  clothes, 
with  a  silver  watch-chain  across  his  waistcoat. 

"Ah,"  he  repeated  with  gathering  emphasis,  "so  you  are 
awake." 

"I  aun't  got  the  chanst  of  being  much  else  wud  all  the 
noise  in  the  room,"  said  Bob  sulkily,  for  the  pain  had  made 
him  cross. 

The  gentleman  raised  his  eyebrows,  or  rather  the  part  of 
his  forehead  where  they  should  have  been.  Then,  having 
conveyed  rebuke,  he  proceeded: 

"The  blind  is  flapping,  I  fear.  The  cord  is  broken,  but  I 
was  telling  your  wife  that  a  nail  might  be  of  use.  Should  you 
object  to  the  noise  of  one  being  driven  in?" 

"I  doan't  care,"  said  Robert  wearily,  "reckon  I've  a  mid- 
dling beast  of  a  headache." 

"Do  not  repine,  my  friend.  You  *ave  deep  cause  for 
thankfulness.  If  the  Lord  'ad  not  guided  my  feet — or  rather, 
the  hooves  of  my  horse,  since  I  was  in  my  phaeton — to  where 
you  lay  abandoned — abandoned" — he  repeated  the  word  twice, 
as  if  to  emphasize  both  its  literal  and  spiritual  meaning — 
"you  might  now  be  standing  before  your  Judge  instead  of  lying 
in  a  comfortable  bed  in  a  Christian  'ouse." 

He  had  spoken  with  just  the  same  weight  and  solemnity 
of  the  blind,  but  neither  this  nor  his  occasional  difficulty 
with  his  aitches  could  take  away  from  the  effect  of  his  words 
on  Robert.  The  young  man  felt  impressed,  almost  afraid — 
as  if  he  could  really  see  his  soul  standing  naked  and  abandoned 
before  his  Maker. 

"Reckon  I'm  grateful  fur  wot  you've  done,  sir,"  he  mumbled 
sheepishly. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  147 

"I  'ave  done  nothing,"  thundered  the  old  fellow,  "but  the 
Lord  'as  done  all.  I  am  but  His  unworthy  instrument.  I 
am" — his  voice  dropped  to  an  emphatic  whisper — "a,  worm. 
And" — swelling  again  to  thunder — "so  are  you." 

Robert  felt  like  it. 

"We  are  both  worms,"  continued  the  preacher  with  feel- 
ing; "we  are  all  worms" —  and  his  glance  extended  to  include 
a  resentful  Mabel — "it  is  only  through  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord  that  we  stand  upon  our  legs  and  call  ourselves  men. 
Those  whom  the  Lord  has  justified  may  indeed  call  themselves 
men,  but  those  whom  He  'as  not" — and  his  bright,  childlike 
eye  fixed  itself  upon  Robert — "are  nothing  but  worms,  miser- 
able worms  wriggling  in  a  ditch." 

"Adone  do  wud  talking  of  worms — ^you'll  maake  me  see  'em 
in  a  minnut." 

"Doubtless.  Such  a  state  is,  I  believe,  common  to  those 
of  intemperate  'abits.  But  I  want  you  when  you  see  them 
to  remember  that  you  are  one,  and  then  the  Lord's  chastise- 
ment will  not  be  wasted  on  you." 

"I  aun't  got  intemperate  habits,  as  you  say.  .  .  ." 

"My  friend !" 

The  preacher  lifted  one  thick  white  hand,  and  the  gesture, 
with  a  mournful  smile,  disposed  of  the  lie. 

"I  aun't  bin  drunk  for  more'n  two  years,"  continued  Rob- 
ert aggressively. 

"Shut  up,  Robert,"  said  Mabel.     "I'm  ashamed  of  you." 

"When  I  found  you  in  the  ditch,"  continued  Mr.  Beeman, 
"you  were  what  is  termed  Blind  Drunk." 

"Well,  I  doan't  remember  naun  about  it." 

"We  will  not  discuss  the  subject  further,  since  it  is  leading 
3^ou  deeper  into  your  sins.  I  will  only  remind  you  that  without 
are  the  dogs,  and  whosoever  loveth  or  maketh  a  lie." 

He  turned  impressively  on  his  heel  and  went  out.  Robert 
lay  and  sulked  for  a  bit.  He  was  angry  with  Mabel  for  having 
taken  the  other's  part  against  him. 

"You  might  have  stood  by  me,  anyways — you're  my  wife." 

"Well,  that's  cool — after  the  way  you've  treated  me." 

Robert  wished  he  could  remember  how  he  had  treated  her. 


148  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Had  he  done  something  inconceivably  dreadful?  But  that 
fragment  of  the  past  was  lost,  and  he  did  not  dare  carry  his 
questions  very  far  in  case  they  led  to  some  awful  revelation. 
So  he  said  no  more.  A  few  minutes  later  a  kind-looking  woman 
of  the  servant  class  brought  him  a  beaten-up  egg  in  some  milk, 
and  Mabel  w^ent  down  to  have  her  supper.  Before  she  left 
him  she  asked  him  if  he  would  like  a  book  to  look  at  while 
she  was  away,  and  Robert,  who  felt  better  and  rather  rest- 
less, said  he  would.  There  were  four  books  on  the  dressing- 
table,  but  Mabel  said  they  all  looked  very  dull.  Only  one  had 
pictures  in  it,  and  that  was  a  Bible.  The  others  were  just 
sermons  and  a  book  of  hymns. 

Robert  said  he  would  have  the  Bible.  He  had  always 
liked  the  Bible,  though  sometimes  it  scared  him  horribly,  and 
pictures  would  make  it  still  more  interesting.  Mabel  handed 
it  to  him  unwillingly — she  thought  it  rather  "soft"  for  a  man 
to  read  the  Bible,  and  was  secretly  alarmed  by  a  tendency  she 
sometimes  found  in  her  husband  to  be  unashamed  in  matters 
of  religion.  Her  prejudices  were  confirmed  when  she  came 
back  and  found  him  sitting  up  in  bed,  with  his  elbows  on  the 
open  Bible  on  his  knees,  and  his  fingers  thrusting  wildly  about 
in  his  hair,  while  his  blue  eyes  stuck  out  with  horror.  When 
she  came  up  to  him,  he  seized  her  hand: 

"Mabel,  it's  tar'ble— look!" 

On  his  knees  was  a  picture  of  a  falling  city,  all  toppling  and 
black  and  burning.  Huge  towers  leaned  this  way  and  that, 
while  flames  shot  out  of  the  alleys  and  rose  as  high  as  the 
towers.  Fire  rained  down  from  a  black  and  thundering  sky, 
while,  lit  up  by  the  glare  of  the  flames  and  the  lightning,  little 
knots  of  people  ran  about  in  confusion,  stumbling  in  the  cin- 
ders and  fallen  stones. 

"It's  hell,"  said  Robert  in  a  crushed  voice. 

"Well,  what  of  it?    It's  only  a  picture." 

"I  never  knew  as  it  wur  lik  that." 

"Don't  be  so  silly.    I've  told  you  it's  only  a  picture." 

"But  look  wot's  written,  surelye." 

Underneath  the  picture  was  printed  in  old-fashioned  copper- 
plate: 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  149 

"And  without  are  the  dogs,  and  the  whoremongers  and  the 
idolaters,  and  whosoever  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie." 

"Them's  the  very  wards  wot  the  Reverend  used  to  me," 
said  Robert. 

Mabel  caught  the  book  away  impatiently. 

"And  you  mean  to  tell  me  you've  sat  gaping  at  that  ever 
since  I  left  you?" 

"I  opened  the  book  anyhows,  and  it  opened  thur.  Reckon 
them  wards  are  fur  me." 

"Really,  Bob,  you're  getting  soft.  You've  had  a  knock  on 
the  head,  so  maybe  it  isn't  your  fault,  but  I  must  say  that 
the  ideas  you  get  hold  of  sometimes  make  me  wonder  if  you're 
half  the  man  you  look." 

"You  doan't  understand." 

"I  dare  say  I  don't.  I  was  always  brought  up  to  keep 
religion  in  its  proper  place.  If  you're  frightened  of  going  to 
hell  the  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  behave  decent,  and  give 
up  drinking  and  telling  lies." 

"I  don't  drink  and  I  don't  tell  lies." 

"Give  over.  Bob,  or  you  and  me  ull  quarrel — and  here 
comes  Mr.  Beeman." 

The  minister  entered  the  room  with  an  embracing  smile, 
which  IVIabel  returned  in  a  chastened  fashion.  But  Bob  was 
too  shaken  and  upset  for  any  disguise.  He  had  found  IMabel 
singularly  uncomforting,  and  turned  eagerly  to  the  man  who, 
he  thought,  would  be  fitted  by  his  life  and  vocation  to  re- 
assure him. 

"I've  had  a  praaper  scare  wud  your  Bible,  sir,  and  I  can't 
git  it  out  of  my  head." 

"I  pray  that  you  never  may  get  it  out  of  your  head,"  said 
the  Pastor  benignly. 

"Don't  worry  the  gentleman.  Bob,"  said  ^label  with  a  cross 
nudge.    But  Robert  was  desperate. 

"There  wur  a  picture  of  hell,"  he  continued,  "and  under- 
neath it  said  wot  you  said  to  me — 'wudout  are  the  dogs  and 
whosumdever  maakes  a  lie.'  Not  but  wot  I  wur  telling  you  the 
gospel  truth  when  I  said  as  I  dudn't  remember  naun  of  wot 
happened  before  I  got  here." 


150  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"You  need  not  seek  to  justify  yourself,  for  there  is  One  above 
that  justifieth.  My  friend,  I've  not  the  slightest  doubt  that 
you  were  Led  to  see  that  picture  and  read  those  words,  so  that 
you  might  flee  from  the  Wrath  to  Come." 

There  was  a  gleam  in  the  old  fellow's  eye,  and  even  his 
ponderous  voice  hurried  and  danced  a  little. 

"I  doan't  want  to  go  to  hell,"  whined  Robert. 

"I  tell  him  not  to  worry,"  broke  in  Mabel,  "but  to  live 
decent  and  stop  getting  drunk  and  telling  me  lies  about 
people  he  meets  and  says  he  doesn't — and  then  he'll  be  all 
right." 

"But  'e  will  not  be  'all  right,'  "  and  Mr.  Beeman's  voice 
became  almost  musical  with  triumph.  "Do  not  think,  my 
friend,  to  save  your  soul  by  the  dead  works  of  the  legal  con- 
science. You  must  put  on  Salvation — for  the  Just  shall  live 
by  Faith." 

"But  how  am  I  to  do  that?  I'd  do  it  lik  a  shot  if  I  knew 
how." 

"You  will  know  in  His  appointed  time,  if  it  is  His  will  to 
justify  you.  So  far  He  has  granted  j^ou  one  mercy — a  sense 
of  His  wrath.  You  are  afraid  of  hell,  and  rightly  afraid.  I 
will  put  up  a  prayer  for  you." 

To  Mabel's  horror  he  knelt  down  by  the  bed  and  offered 
up  a  longish  prayer,  in  which  he  asked  that  the  heart  of  this 
poor  sinner  might  be  further  moved  and  finally  accepted. 
"Since  Thou  hast  mercy  on  whom  Thou  wilt  have  mercy  and 
whom  Thou  wilt  Thou  hardenest." 

For  some  reason  or  other  Robert  felt  a  little  comforted, 
and  as  he  opened  his  eyes,  which  he  had  shut  of  custom  while 
the  minister  prayed,  he  saw  the  text  on  the  opposite  wall. 

"  'I  have  loved  thee  wud  an  everlasting  love' — then  maybe 
He  woan't  send  me  to  hell  fur  all  that  I've  bin  so  bad." 

"My  friend,  don't  count  on  tliat.  Those  words  are  for  the 
Elect.  Whom  He  predestinates  He  justifies,  and  whom  He 
justifies  He  also  glorifies.  Them  indeed  'as  He  loved  with  an 
everlasting  love." 

"But  couldn't  He  predestinate  me?" 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  151 

"Certainly  He  could,  and  I  shall  pray  continually  that  He 
will." 

"But  if  He  doan't  .  .  .  shall  I  have  to  go  to  hell?" 
"Ah,  poor  sinner,  who  are  we  worms  to  pry  into  the  coun- 
cils of  the  Almighty?  The  Scripture  says  that  He  has  ap- 
pointed some  to  honour  and  some  to  dishonour.  We  must  trust 
'is  'oly  Word.  And  now  I  will  wish  you  good  night.  I  trust, 
Mrs.  Fuller,  that  you  'ave  all  that  is  necessary  for  your  com- 
fort. If  the  blind  should  flap,  I  think  that  a  nail  would  be  of 
use.     Good  night." 

§  42 

Neither  Robert  nor  Mabel  slept  very  well.  Robert  made 
that  impossible  for  both  of  them.  The  pain  in  his  head  grew 
worse,  and  he  became  feverish,  tossing  from  side  to  side,  and 
muttering  to  himself  in  a  kind  of  dream. 

"Keep  quiet.  Bob,"  moaned  the  weary  Mabel,  but  when 
she  saw  that  he  really  could  not  help  himself  she  grew 
compassionate,  and  got  out  of  bed  and  wetted  a  handkerchief 
to  lay  on  his  forehead. 

He  muttered  and  moaned  to  himself,  and  sometimes  she 
wondered  if  he  was  delirious,  and  whether  she  ought  to  fetch 
somebody,  but  every  now  and  then  he  spoke  to  her  rationally, 
and  his  eyes  looked  at  her  full  of  pain  and  understanding. 
Once  he  said: 

"Mabel,  I  git  such  tar'ble  dreams." 

He  kept  dreaming  of  the  black,  burning  city,  and  he  was 
among  those  who  ran  hither  and  thither  for  ever  and  ever, 
trying  to  escape  from  the  flames  and  cinders.  Sometimes  the 
city  was  as  he  had  seen  it  in  the  book,  at  other  times  it  was 
more  poignantly  familiar — just  the  well-known  street  of  High 
Tilt,  all  seared  and  gutted  with  fire,  with  the  flames  running 
out  from  under  the  roofs  of  the  Woolpack  and  the  Royal 
George,  and  the  smoke  coming  up  in  a  black  funnel  from  the 
oast  house  of  Weights  Farm,  and  all  the  windows  broken, 
and  the  road  littered  with  black  spars  and  rags.  That  was 
worse,  far  worse,  than  the  city  in  the  book.    Sometimes  when 


152  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

he  came  into  it,  it  lay  calm  and  commonplace  in  a  queer,  sun- 
less afternoon  light,  and  then  it  would  all  flare  up  like  a  fur- 
nace ...  or  else  behind  one  friendly  window  he  would  sud- 
denly see  a  little  tongue  of  flame,  and  then  it  would  be  out 
under  the  eaves,  and  licking  the  door-posts,  and  he  would  be 
running  from  the  Wrath  to  Come. 

He  woke  up  covered  with  sweat  and  gripping  Mabel's 
hand. 

"Oh,  kiddie,  kiddie — say  summat  comforting — I  have  such 
tar'ble  dreams." 

"I  dare  say  you're  a  bit  off  your  head,  having  knocked  it," 
was  all  the  "summat  comforting"  that  Mabel  could  think  of 
to  say.  But  she  was  no  longer  impatient  with  him.  She  held 
his  hand  and  stroked  it. 

"  'Wudout  are  the  dogs,  and  the  whoremongers  and  the 
idolators,  and  whosumdever  maake  a  lie'  ...  oh,  Mabel,  I 
wur  spikking  the  truth  when  I  said  thur  wurn't  naun  up  be- 
tween me  and  Hannah.  I  aun't  no  whoremonger  nor  liar. 
Oh,  do  say  as  you  believe  me." 

"Of  course  I  believe  you,"  said  Mabel  soothingly;  "I'm 
sorry  we  had  that  row,  but  I  was  feeling  poorly  and  you'd 
had  too  much  whisky." 

"I'll  never  touch  another  drop  so  long  as  I  live.  But  he 
says  that'll  do  no  good.  .  .  .  Oh,  kiddie,  reckon  I'm  in  fur 
the  Wrath  to  Come — and  wotsumdever  shall  I  do?  Wot- 
sumdever  shall  I  do?" 

The  next  day  he  was  worse,  and  the  doctor  had  to  be  called 
in.  He  gave  Robert  a  soothing  draught,  and  said  that  he  was 
on  no  account  to  be  excited — an  injunction  which  Mr.  Beeman 
did  not  so  interpret  as  to  forbid  his  putting  up  several  prayers 
at  the  bedside. 

"I  feel  encouraged — deeply  encouraged,"  he  said  to  Mabel, 
"to  see  that  he  has  at  last  awakened  to  a  sense  of  sin.  Now 
that  has  'appened  we  may  'ope  for  more." 

"I  wish  you'd  let  him  alone,"  said  Mabel  ungraciously; 
"he'll  never  get  well  if  you  make  him  think  about  religion." 

"That's  just  what  I  want  him  to  think  about  without  ceas- 
ing.   Even  if  I  knew  it  would  mean  the  death  of  his  body — 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  153 

even  then  would  it  not  be  worth  while,  since  it  is  the  only  'ope 
for  the  life  of  his  soul?  I  'ave,  besides,  an  inward  assurance 
that  he  will  find  salvation." 

"He's  more  likely  to  go  off  his  head." 

But  Mr.  Beeman  was  not  dismayed.  Before  very  long  he 
had  put  himself  in  possession  of  most  of  the  facts  of  Robert's 
stormy  experience.  Urged  by  fundamental  terror  and  grief, 
young  Fuller  poured  out  not  only  the  story  of  his  love  for 
Hannah  Iden,  but  of  his  earlier  aberrations  and  excesses — 
all  those  big  and  little  things  which  he  had  not  troubled  about 
for  years,  which  had  all  been  swallowed  up  in  his  love  for 
Hannah,  but,  now  that  the  tides  had  ebbed,  had  returned  to 
life  like  the  world  after  Noah's  flood. 

Mr.  Beeman's  inmost  man  was  stirred.  He  snuffed  and 
pawed  like  a  charger  at  the  call  of  the  trumpet.  He  had 
rarely,  very  rarely,  had  such  a  case  as  this.  Sinners  had  sel- 
dom shown  themselves  so  obligingly  black  and  cringing.  Here 
was  a  man  who  owned  to  having  committed  most  of  the  worst 
sins — here  was  a  man  who,  moreover,  owned  to  having  deliber- 
ately rejected  the  call  of  the  Lord  to  repentance,  a  call  miracu- 
lously given.  Was  there  ever  a  more  promising  case  of  damna- 
tion? And  yet  was  there  ever  a  more  suitable  opportunity 
for  the  Lord  to  confirm  the  doctrine  of  Predestination  than  by 
showing  His  particular  mercies  to  this  black  and  derelict 
soul,  which  certainly  had  not  concerned  itself  with  the  dead 
works  of  the  legal  conscience  or  outward  forms  of  righteous- 
ness? Mr.  Beeman  did  not  fail  to  remind  his  Creator  that 
here  indeed  was  a  chance  that  should  never  be  missed. 

The  doctor  soon  discovered  how  matters  stood,  and  advised 
Mabel  to  have  her  husband  removed  as  soon  as  it  became  pos- 
sible. 

"All  this  kind  of  thing  is  extremely  bad  for  him.  I  know 
Mr.  Beeman  means  well,  but  he  has  peculiar  religious  views — 
very  peculiar." 

"He  calls  himself  a  Peculiar  Baptist." 

"The  people  round  here  call  him  'Old  Pope  Beeman,'  'the 
Pope  of  Goudhurst,'  and  I  believe  he  knows  it  and  is  proud 
of  it.    A  very  excellent  man,  but  I've  had  trouble  of  this  kind 


154  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

with  him  before.  He  has,  of  course,  saved  your  husband's 
life,  and  I'm  sure  you  must  be  g'-ateful  to  him,  but  he  is  fast 
undoing  his  good  work  by  troubling  Mr.  Fuller's  conscience 
in  this  way.  The  patient  is  in  a  weak  state  and  has  had  a 
severe  blow  on  the  head;  I  don't  wish  to  alarm  you,  but  I've 
told  Beeman  that  if  he  isn't  careful  we  may  have  trouble 
.  .  .  religious  mania,  you  know,  is  not  uncommon  with  men 
of  your  husband's  type.  By  the  way,  can  you  tell  me  anything 
about  his  family?  Are  they  at  all  religious  people — eccen- 
trically religious  people?" 

"I  beheve  his  father  was  a  bit  queer  that  way.  He 'used 
to  read  the  Bible  a  lot,  and  think  everything  was  wrong." 

"Um  ...  we  must  be  careful.  I've  spoken  to  Mr.  Beeman 
till  I'm  hoarse,  but  he's  quite  unreasonable — says  it's  a  case 
of  a  soul  to  be  saved,  though  how  he's  going  to  save  the  soul 
if  he  loses  the  intellect,  I  don't  profess  to  know.  However, 
you  mustn't  let  yourself  be  unduly  worried,  Mrs.  Fuller.  I 
hope  in  a  day  or  two  he  will  be  well  enough  for  you  to  take 
him  home,  and  then  you  can  help  him  to  forget  all  this.  Let 
him  have  plenty  of  fresh  air,  plenty  of  good  food,  plenty  to 
occupy  him  and  nothing  to  worry  him.  And  then  when  your 
hopes  are  fulfilled"— and  he  looked  at  Mabel  very  kindly— 
I'm  sure  he  will  become  happy  and  normal  again." 


«T' 


§  43 

But  the  return  to  Campany's  Hatch  was  not  so  successful  as 
it  should  have  been.  Robert  had  got  over  the  acute  stage 
of  his  despair  while  still  at  Goudhurst,  but  he  seemed  to  have 
lapsed  into  a  settled  brooding.  It  was  not  a  favourable  sign, 
the  doctor  said;  the  abatement  of  the  violent  symptoms  int© 
melancholy  was  likely  to  make  recovery  a  slower  business. 
He  told  Mabel  that  she  must  not  put  all  the  blame  on  Mr. 
Beeman.  Probably  Robert  would  have  shown  some  signs  of 
mental  disturbance  in  any  case;  the  nature  of  the  accident, 
complicated  by  drink,  heredity,  and  rather  an  unbalanced 
attitude  towards  religion,  were  enough  in  themselves  to  have 
excited  a  highly  strung,  highly  sexed  nature  to  the  verge  of 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  155 

mania.  Mabel's  attitude  towards  the  preacher  varied  with 
her  emotions.  Sometimes  she  was  furious  to  think  of  the 
havoc  he  had  worked — even  though  he  had  done  no  more 
than  direct  and  encourage  tendencies;  at  other  times  she 
realized  that  but  for  him  Robert  might  possibly  be  dead, 
and  anyhow  she  could  not  help  being  impressed  by  his  smooth 
and  solemn  manner,  and  by  the  dignity  and  order  of  his  house- 
hold. The  old  man  v/as  a  widower,  with  a  married  daugh- 
ter living  at  High  Halden,  and  a  housekeeper  took  care  of 
his  home.  Nowhere  had  Mabel  seen  such  burnished  brass,  such 
gleaming  furniture,  such  excellence  of  linen.  She  could  not 
fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  respectable  comfort  of  it  all,  and 
she  soon  realized  that  the  Reverend  Mr,  Beeman  was  a  per- 
sonage in  Goudhurst  and  the  neighbourhood.  If  men  called 
him  Old  Pope  it  was  not  so  much  out  of  mockery  as  out  of 
deference.  Certainly  he  held  the  keys  of  heaven  as  tight  as 
any  successor  of  Peter. 

It  struck  her  that  she  might  perhaps  compound  with  him 
for  her  husband's  salvation. 

"I  wish  before  he  leaves,"  she  said  at  supper  the  last  eve- 
ning, "that  you'd  tell  Bob  he  won't  go  to  hell." 

"But,  my  dear  friend,  'ow  do  I  know  'e  won't?" 

"Of  course  he  won't,"  said  Mabel  crossly;  "why  should  he? 
He  isn't  half  so  bad  as  some." 

Mr.  Beeman  threw  his  eyes  up  solemnly. 

"My  friend,  my  dear  Mrs.  Fuller,  I  only  'ope  as  you  know 
not  what  you  say.  We  are  all  the  children  of  Wrath  and 
doomed  to  hell  till  the  Lord  has  mercy  on  us.  If  I  saw  in 
your  'usband  any  token  of  the  Lord's  favour,  any  sign  that 
he  had  put  on  Salvation,  then  I'd  tell  'im  as  plain  as  your 
nose.  For  the  gifts  and  calling  of  God  are  without  repentance. 
And  now  let  me  'elp  you  to  a  little  more  of  the  Welsh  rare- 
bit." 

Mabel  and  Bob  drove  off  the  next  morning  in  a  car  hired 
expensively  from  the  Goudhurst  Hotel.  Bob  looked  pinched 
and  wan,  and  when  Campany's  Hatch  showed  its  glaring  home- 
stead and  mellow  barns  by  the  Rother  stream,  his  eyes  showed 
no  greeting  ardour.     Mabel  nestled  up  to  him,  murmuring: 


156  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Won't  it  be  lovely  to  be  back  home  again?"  But  be  only 
answered:    "Yes,  kiddie." 

He  did  not  take  the  interest  in  the  farm  and  its  affairs 
that  she  had  hoped.  During  their  absence,  which  had  lasted 
nearly  a  fortnight,  the  place  had  been  under  the  care  of  Crouch 
of  Ethnam;  but  though  Robert  went  round  the  barns  with 
him  the  next  morning,  he  seemed  strangely  lack-lustre  and 
uninterested, 

"He  aun't  got  over  it  yet,"  said  Crouch  to  Mabel;  "he'll 
be  himself  agaun  in  a  day  or  two,  surelye." 

Mabel  forced  herself  to  believe  him.  After  all,  Robert  was 
still  physically  weak;  she  had  followed  the  Goudhurst  doctor's 
advice,  and  brought  him  home  as  soon  as  he  was  fit  for  the 
journey.  If  only  Mr.  Beeman  had  let  him  alone,  it  would  have 
been  well  for  him  to  have  stayed  longer  in  that  comfortable, 
established  place,  where  brasses  shone  and  woodwork  gleamed 
and  linen  was  cool  and  white  in  the  shadow  of  Predestination. 
But  Mr.  Beeman  would  not  let  him  alone;  he  was  even  spirit- 
ually present  at  Campany's  Hatch,  under  the  outward  form 
of  three  little  black  books:  "Hart's  Hymns,"  "Calling  and 
Election,  or  the  Sinner's  Hope,"  by  Richard  Huntington,  and 
"The  Wonders  of  Free  Grace,"  by  James  Weller.  Robert 
would  sit  and  read  these  in  the  evenings  instead  of  the  news- 
paper, and  fragments  of  their  wisdom  drifted  to  Mabel  over  the 
pools  of  sleep  in  which  at  night  she  and  Robert  seemed  rest- 
lessly to  swim  together.  She  was  always  conscious  of  her 
husband  in  her  dreams — in  them  she  seemed  unwillingly  to 
share  his  experience,  from  which  she  was  shut  out  by  day. 
By  day  he  never  spoke  to  her  of  his  troubles,  because  he  knew 
she  could  not  understand  them.  She  was  annoyed,  and  she 
was  sorry,  and  ashamed,  and  exasperated,  and  afraid,  but  she 
never  understood. 

The  day  after  his  return  Clem  came  over  to  see  him.  The 
younger  brother  was  shocked  at  Bob's  pale,  pinched  face,  the 
sorrowful  stare  of  his  eyes,  which  seemed  fixed  on  some  in- 
tangible horror  beyond  sight.  The  family  at  Bodingmares  had 
never  heard  the  exact  story  of  his  accident,  or  rather  of  the 
circumstances  that  had  led  up  to  it,  and  much  conjecture  was 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  157 

rife.  It  was  even  rumoured  in  High  Tilt  that  he  had  ''taaken 
up  wud"  Hannah  again.  But  Mabel  denied  that.  She  and 
Bob  had  had  a  quarrel  over  Hannah,  she  acknowledged,  but 
there  was  really  nothing  in  it,  and  now  that  Hannah  had  gone 
away  she  didn't  mind.  Mrs.  Wheelsgate  had  once  been  over 
to  Goudhurst  to  see  her  son,  and  she  brought  back  the  news 
of  his  mental  state,  which  Mabel  also  told  of  in  her  letters. 
Clem  was  therefore  in  a  certain  sense  prepared,  but  he  had 
not  expected  so  violent  a  change,  such  an  utter  collapse  of 
the  old,  swaggering  Robert,  whose  swagger  had  moreover 
lately  acquired  the  substance  of  respectability. 

"It's  the  Lord  wot's  a-done  it,"  he  said  to  Clem.  He  did 
not  treat  his  brother  with  the  same  reserve  as  he  treated 
Mabel.  They  had  shared  too  many  confidences  for  him  to 
withhold  himself  in  silence  now.  They  sat  together  in  the 
little  glass  porch  of  Campany's  Hatch,  which  concentrated 
the  afternoon  sunshine  of  November  into   a  pleasant  heat. 

"I  shud  say  as  you'd  a-done  it  yourself,"  said  Clem,  "falling 
about  in  the  road.  You're  still  a  bit  poorly  in  your  head,  I 
reckon.    When  you're  stronger  you'll  feel  differunt." 

"I  shan't,"  said  Bob  wearily.    "Oh,  Clem.  I'm  a  sinner." 

"Well,  doan't  vrother  about  that.  Reckon  it  wur  just  a 
kind  of  bust  out.  Anyways,  it's  over  now,  and  if  you  behave 
praaper,  folkses  ull  disremember  it." 

"But  all  my  life  I've  bin  a  sinner — outside  the  mercies  of 
God.  I've  disobeyed  His  voice  a-calling  me — fur  I  know  now 
as  He  called  me  at  that  meeting,  when  I  stood  up,  .  .  .  But 
I  wur  angry,  thinking  as  He'd  maade  a  fool  of  me — and  I 
dudn't  want  to  be  Saaved,  and  give  up  my  beer  and  going 
wud  girls." 

"Do  you  want  to  be  Saaved  now?" 

"Reckon  I  do — but  it's  too  liiate.  I've  sold  my  birthright 
fur  a  mess  of  pottage,  and  now  when  I  say  'bless  me  also,  O 
my  Faather,'  it  aun't  no  good." 

"But  wot's  maade  you  chaange  raound  all  of  a  suddent?" 

"It  aun't  all  of  a  suddent.  I've  bin  scared  on  and  off  fur 
a  long  time.  ,  .  .  And  then  Mus'  Beeman  showed  me  as  I 
wur  baound  fur  Judgment." 


158  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Clem  remembered  something. 

"Did  I  ever  tell  you  the  dream  I  had  wunst  about  pore 
faather?" 

"Wot  wur  that?" 

"I  dreamed  as  he  said:  'I'm  easier  now  the  flaming  Judg- 
ment's taaken  away.'  And  then  I  looked  and  I  saw  a  gurt 
Bible  wud  flames  running  out  from  under  the  covers." 

Robert's  eyes  grew  round  with  horror. 

"A  Bible  wud  flames.  .  .  .  But  that's  just  wot  it  is,  surelye. 
Fire's  come  out  of  the  Bible  and  burnt  me  up.  Oh,  Clem,  wot 
a  larmentaable,  shocking  dream." 

"It  wur  a  good  dream.  Faather  said  as  the  Judgment  wur 
taaken  away.    Maybe  that  wur  meant  fur  you." 

For  a  moment  a  faint  relief  showed  in  Robert's  eye,  but  the 
next  it  flickered  out. 

"No — reckon  it  aun't  fur  me.  If  I  ever  had  a  chance  I 
turned  my  back  on  it.  I  wur  angry  at  being  maade  a  fool  of 
.  .  .  and  I  wanted  to  enjoy  myself.  Oh,  Clem,  maybe  I've 
done  the  sin  agaunst  the  Holy  Ghost." 

He  gripped  his  brother's  arm  in  a  throe  of  terror. 

"Oh,  I  said  as  I'd  sarve  Him  out,  but  reckon  He's  sarved 
me  out  instead — sarved  me  out  and  got  the  everlasting  laugh 
of  me." 

The  door  suddenly  opened  from  the  house  as  Mabel  came 
out  to  say  that  tea  was  ready,  and  Bob  sank  back  into  his  usual 
silent  state  of  trouble. 

§  44 

December  came,  with  mornings  of  cloud  and  rime,  and  yel- 
low early  sunsets,  that  seemed  to  drink  up  all  the  afternoon 
in  a  pool  of  glimmering,  heatless  light.  The  surfaces  of  the 
fields  were  frozen,  but  under  those  hard,  thin  sods  there  was 
a  live  softness,  smelling  of  loam.  In  the  pale  sunshine  that 
wandered  in  patches  over  the  fields  there  was  a  continual 
gleam  of  water — of  melting  globes  of  frost  upon  the  grass, 
or  beads  of  rain  on  the  thorns,  or  a  dewy  smother  on  the 
fleeces  of  the  ewes.    The  world  was  never  quite  dry,  and  yet 


GREEN  APPLE  PIARVEST  159 

the  drench  of  November  was  gone,  and  workmen  stumbling 
awake  to  their  windows  at  the  first  daylight  streak,  saw 
away  over  the  woods  to  distant  farms;  for  the  mists  no  longer 
brewed  in  the  Rother  Valley  or  filled  farmhouses  with  the 
smell  of  water  and  reeds. 

Work  slackened  at  Bodingmares,  and  Clem  was  able  to  go 
more  often  to  Campany's  Hatch.  Also  Robert  occasionally 
cam.e  to  see  him  at  Pookwell,  or  to  visit  Jim  and  Mary  at  the 
big  house.  He  was  still  in  the  black  mood,  but  he  was  now 
becoming  used  to  it  and  beginning  to  move  in  the  midst  of  it 
like  a  pathetic  automaton.  Once  more  he  went  to  market,  he 
harvested  his  roots,  he  set  snares  for  conies.  Those  who  visited 
him  casually  from  other  farms  said  that  Mus'  Fuller  had  got 
over  his  trouble  better'n  he  desarved.  Only  those  who  lived 
with  him  or  knew  him  well  were  aware  that  the  trouble  had 
merely  been  driven  in  deeper.  It  was  working  itself  into  the 
bottom  of  his  heart — he- no  longer  struggled  with  it,  as  with  a 
thing  outside  him;  but  in  it  he  moved  and  worked  and  saw  the 
world  and  had  his  being. 

Mabel  had  no  illusions  about  him. 

"He's  going  mad,"  she  said  to  Mary.  ''I've  a  feeling  that 
we'll  have  him  at  Hellinglye  Asylum  before  long.  Oh,  why 
did  I  ever  let  him  go  out  that  evening,  in  a  tantrum  as  he 
was?     I  can't  help  blaming  myself." 

"I  doan't  see  as  it's  your  fault;  a  woman  aun't  to  blaame  fur 
all  the  silly  things  her  husband  does,"  said  Mary,  who  had  said 
"No"  to  Pepper  of  Weights.  "You  can't  never  tell  wot  a  man 
ull  do  next  in  the  way  of  silliness.  I  must  say  as  I'm  sur- 
prised, even  at  Bob." 

"It  isn't  his  doing — he  knocked  his  head,  and  then  that  old 
fellow  got  hold  of  him  and  made  him  worse.  Do  you  know, 
he  came  to  us  last  week,  and  he  said  the  sight  of  Bob  made 
him  happier  than  he's  been  for  months.  Funny  ideas  of  hap- 
piness some  people  have." 

"It's  all  along  of  having  too  much  to  do  wud  religion, 
as  I've  said  a  dunnamany  times.  Religion's  well  enough  if 
you've  got  to  maake  your  living  by  it,  lik  a  Minister  or  a 
Clergyman;   but  it's  when  you  start  maaking,  as  you  might 


i6o  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

say,  a  hobby  of  it  that  the  trouble  begins.  Thur  wur  Bob's 
faather,  so  religious  that  folkses  cud  scarce  bear  to  live  wud 
him,  and  reckon  Bob  taakes  after  him.  Thank  goodness  it's 
passed  over  the  rest  of  us." 

Sometimes  Mabel  made  efforts  to  reason  with  Bob;  some- 
times she  implored  him,  telling  him  he  was  spoiling  her  life 
and  the  prospects  of  their  child.  Sometimes  she  tried  to 
charm  and  soothe  away  his  trouble.  But  it  was  all  no  good. 
They  could  not  argue  together,  because  in  such  matters  they 
were  strangers  and  spoke  different  languages.  It  was  mere 
mockery  to  implore  him  to  do  what  he  had  for  so  long  tried 
to  do  in  vain,  and  though  her  allurements  were  not  dead,  nor 
his  passions,  any  passing  moment  of  comfort  had  about  it 
such  an  air  of  falsity  that  it  was  inevitably  swallowed  up  in 
bitterness.  Once  she  took  him  to  chapel,  where  he  had  refused 
to  go  for  some  time,  and  it  had  seemed  at  first  to  do  him  good. 
He  had  been  soothed  by  the  Bible-reading  and  the  prayers; 
but  when  the  congregation  stood  up  to  sing  "There  is  a  foun- 
tain filled  with  blood,"  the  sense  of  his  abandonment  had 
once  more  overwhelmed  him,  and  when  they  came  to  the 
words: 

I  do  believe,  I  will  believe, 

That  Jesus  died   for  me, 
That  on  the  cross  He  shed  His  Blood 

From  sin  to  set  me  free — 

he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and  had  flung  down  his  book  and 
left  the  chapel,  outcast  and  reprobate  before  them  all. 

Clem  was  horribly  worried  about  his  brother,  though  he 
did  not,  like  the  others,  think  he  was  going  mad.  Poor  Bob 
seemed  to  have  nothing  but  trouble.  First  it  was  love,  and 
then  it  was  religion.  You  would  not  think  that  Bob  was 
the  sort  of  chap  to  trouble  about  religion,  but  he  seemed  just 
as  unhappy  now  as  in  the  days  after  he  had  lost  Hannah 
Iden;  he  had  just  that  same  scared,  wandering  look.  Clem 
ha.d  always  had  a  deep  respect  for  religious  people,  and  often 
lamented  his  own  unconverted  state;  but  certainly  Bob's 
religion  did  not  seem  to  be  doing  him  much  good — though  that 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  161 

was,  he  said,  because  he  was  not  Accepted.  Two  years  ago 
God  had  called  him  in  the  Throws  chapel,  and  he  had  refused 
to  come,  and  now  when  he  wanted  to  come  God  would  not 
have  him.  It  was  like  when  Clem  had  refused  an  invitation 
to  the  school-treat  because  he  thought  his  father  was  going 
to  Cranbrook  fair  that  day  and  would  take  him  with  him — 
and  then  his  father  had  not  gone  after  all,  and  when  Clem 
turned  up  at  the  school-treat  the  IVIinister  would  not  let  him 
in.  That  was  what  had  happened  to  Bob,  only  with  this 
difference — that  his  rejection  involved  no  mere  negative  wait- 
ing outside,  but  fiery  torments  in  an  everlasting  hell,  whose 
horrors  he  had  managed  to  communicate  to  Clem,  so  that 
Polly  used  to  grumble  because  her  husband  always  had  night- 
mares after  going  to  see  Robert. 

But  of  late  Robert  had  said  he  did  not  mind  about  that 
kind  of  thing  so  much.  At  first  he  had  been  horribly  scared 
at  the  thought  of  living  in  a  city  all  flames,  with  everything 
eternally  red  hot,  so  that  you  walked  about  like  a  cat  on  hot 
cinders  and  dursn't  sit  down  anywheres.  .  .  .  What  he  wor- 
ried about  most  now  was  being  cast  out  from  the  love  of 
God.  It  was  strange  that  Robert  could  find  it  in  his  heart 
to  love  God  after  all  that  had  happened;  but  he  said  he  did 
love  Him  and  want  to  be  near  Him.  Moreover,  a  change  was 
noticeable  in  his  life.  He  was  much  more  gentle  and  patient 
with  Mabel,  even  when  she  was  most  unsympathetic  and  irri- 
tating; he  never  got  angry  and  cursed — even  with  the  emascu- 
late oaths  of  the  South  Saxon;  he  gave  pennies  to  the  one- 
eyed  man  who  played  the  concertina  at  Salehurst  and  High 
Tilt  markets,  and  he  drank  nothing  but  the  solitary  glass  with 
which  a  farmer  seals  his  business. 

One  would  have  said  that  Robert  was  getting  quite  good, 
but  he  did  not  appear  any  happier.  He  still  went  about  with 
that  stricken,  appealing  look  in  his  eyes,  which  seemed  to 
protrude  a  little  more  than  they  used,  as  if  that  remote  horror 
which  they  gazed  upon  had  dragged  them  out  towards  it.  One 
day  at  Salehurst  market  it  struck  Clem  that  his  brother  looked 
wild;  for  the  first  time  he  seemed  to  see  the  trace  of  that 
madness  which  the  others  had  sworn  to  long  ago. 


i62  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

He  stood  close  to  a  group  of  farmers  who  were  discussing 
crops  and  weather  and  prices  and  Burwash  Fair,  They  took 
no  notice  of  him,  for  the  Rother  Villages  had  once  again  turned 
against  Robert.  The  story  of  his  last  outbreak  had  gone  the 
rounds  with  dramatic  increase;  he  had  got  drunk  with  Hannah 
Iden  at  the  Eight  Bells,  and  then  had  finished  up  by  fighting 
the  bar  of  the  King's  Head  at  Bodiam;  he  had  knocked  two 
teeth  out  of  a  Bodiam  farmer's  head,  and  blacked  another's 
eye;  he  had  beaten  his  wife  till  the  neighbours  came;  he  had 
gone  off  after  the  gipsies,  but  had  fallen  drunk  in  the  ditch  on 
his  way;  he  had  been  picked  up  by  a  Goudhurst  minister  and 
nursed  through  an  attack  of  d.t.'s,  which  had  been  so  violent 
that  it  had  affected  his  brain  and  he  was  going  melancholy 
mad.  And  serve  un  right,  for  Bob  Fuller  had  turned  to  his 
vomit  again  like  the  dog. 

He  did  not  care,  for  he  had  quite  lost  his  social  instincts. 
Nevertheless,  there  was  something  pathetic  about  him  as  he 
stood  there  to-day,  close  to  a  talkative  group  of  his  fellows, 
but  shut  away  from  them  not  only  by  their  judgment,  but  by 
his  own.  Clem's  heart  was  sore  with  compassion.  He  went 
up  to  him  and  touched  his  sleeve. 

"Come  and  have  a  drink,  old  Bob." 

Robert  shook  his  head. 

"Come  on,"  urged  his  brother. 

"I  aun't  thirsty." 

"Then  doan't  look  so  scared  and  downhearted.  You  aun't 
upset  over  them,  are  you?"  And  he  glanced  in  the  direction 
of  the  talking  group. 

"No,  I  doan't  mind  about  them." 

"Then,  Bob,  doan't  look  so "    He  did  not  like  to  say 

"mad."  But  that  was  how  Bob  looked,  and  Clem  could  see 
that  others  were  staring  curiously  at  his  brother.  So  far  he 
did  not  think  anyone  knew  the  full  complications  in  his  story; 
Mabel  had  been  too  much  ashamed  for  gossip,  and  the  rest  of 
the  family  had  held  their  tongues  either  out  of  shame  or  ten- 
derness. But  it  had  begun  to  be  rumoured  that  Bob  Fuller 
was  queer,  and  now  more  than  one  glance  was  thrown  covertly 
or  openly  at  him,   as  he  stood   there,  big  and  cowed  and 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  163 

clumsy,  with  his  eyes  all  red  and  wild.    Clem  suddenly  saw  an 
urgent  need  for  getting  him  ^way. 

"Come  hoame  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  wud  me  and  Polly." 

"I  toald  Mabel  as  I'd  be  back  at  four." 

"And  so  you  can  be,  surelye — leastways  not  more'n  a  half- 
hour  laate.  You'll  just  have  time  to  sit  wud  us  fur  a  bit  and 
git  comfortable." 

"Clem,  I  feel  as  if  my  heart  wur  going  to  break." 

"Doan't  think  of  it.  Reckon  you'll  feel  better  if  you  come 
hoame  wud  me." 

"I  want  to  tell  you  summat.  If  God  sends  me  to  hell,  it's 
because  it's  right.  I  desarve  it,  and  He's  only  doing  wot's 
good  and  right." 

"Doan't  spik  of  such  things  any  more.    Come  along  hoame." 

He  took  his  brother's  arm,  and  led  him  unresisting  to  the 
Ostrich,  where  he  had  left  his  horse.  The  Bodingmares  cart 
was  there  too,  with  a  calf  in  a  net  behind  it.  The  animal 
lowed  mournfully,  for  it  had  pushed  its  head  through  the 
net.  Clem  put  things  right:  "Woa,  then,  old  chap;  it  aun't 
fur  long.  Scarce  three  mile,  and  you'll  have  a  suck  of  milk  off 
Polly's  fingers.  ..."  He  wished  its  eyes  were  not  so  like 
Robert's;  it  was  partly  the  way  they  looked,  and  partly  the 
v.-ay  they  stuck  out. 

Bob  had  gone  to  the  stable  for  his  horse,  but  when  Clem 
had  climbed  up  on  the  seat  and  was  wondering  why  his  brother 
did  not  appear,  the  landlord  of  the  Ostrich  came  round  the 
house: 

"Mus'  Bob  Fuller's  started,  Mus'  Clem.  He  asked  me  to 
tell  you  as  he's  chaanged  his  mind  and  gone  straight  home." 

"Oh,  dum  him!"  said  Clem.  He  was  glad  that  Robert  had 
at  least  left  the  market,  but  he  felt  that  he  was  not  in  a  fit 
mood  either  for  his  own  society  or  for  Mabel's  at  Campany's 
Hatch.  A  quiet  cup  of  tea  at  Pookwell  with  his  brother  and 
Polly  would  have  done  him  far  more  good;  it  might  have 
soothed  him  and  sent  him  home  in  a  more  rational  frame  of 
mind.  However,  there  was  no  use  trying  to  overtake  him,  even 
though  he  had  not  got  more  than  five  minutes'  start.  He  rode 
a  strong  horse,  and  Clem  had  only  a  grass-fed  beast  and  the 


i64  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

weight  of  the  cart  and  the  calf  besides.    He  would  go  over  to 
Campany's  to-morrow  morning;  that  was  the  best  he  could  do. 

§  45 

Clem  reached  home  about  three  o'clock.  For  some  time 
he  was  busy  with  the  new  calf.  He  shouted  for  Polly  to  bring 
it  half  a  pailful  of  milk.  She  came  up,  her  skin  reddened  with 
outdoor  work. 

''So  this  is  the  feller,"  she  said,  as  she  rolled  up  her  sleeve. 
"How  much  dud  you  pay  fur  him?" 

"Thirty  shillun." 

"That  aun't  bad.     You  needn't  look  so  gloamy." 

"I'm  vrothered  about  Bob."  And  he  told  her  how  Robert 
had  looked  at  the  market,  and  all  that  had  happened. 

"Well,  Clem,  you're  a  gurt  owl,"  said  Polly;  "you  shud 
never  ought  to  have  let  him  go  off  lik  that." 

"I  cudn't  stop  him." 

"Then  you  shud  have  gone  after  him." 

"How  cud  I,  then— wud  a  seven  stun  calf  in  the  cart  behind 
me.    Bob  wur  on  Stranger." 

"Well,  I  hope  as  he'll  come  to  no  harm." 

"How  shud  he?" 

"By  your  own  showing.  You  say  he  looked  mad,  and  it 
aun't  saafe  fur  mad  folkses  to  go  off  by  theirselves." 

"I  wur  only  spikking  figuringly.  I  doan't  mean  as  Bob's 
a  looney,  but  he's  vrothered  summat  tar'ble.  I'd  lik  to  git  a 
ward  wud  that  oald  Minister  of  Religion  wot's  guv  him  them 
ideas." 

"I  wish  as  you  hadn't  let  him  go  off  lik  that." 

"How  was  I  to  stop  it?  I  dudn't  look  fur  him  to  dodge  me, 
or  I'd  have  sent  the  boy  fur  Stranger.  You  doan't  think  as 
he'll  go  raving,  or  harming  himself.  Poll?" 

"He'll  be  right  enough,  surelye,"  said  his  wife,  abandoning 
censure  at  the  contrite  ring  in  his  voice.  "I'm  only  sorry 
as  he  dudn't  come  to  us  instead  of  going  to  that  selfish  stick 
of  a  Mabel;  she  doan't  think  of  naun  but  herself  and  her 
feelings,  the  ungrateful  thing." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  165 

The  five  o'clock  darkness  fell,  and  work  soon  came  to  a 
standstill  in  the  shadows  of  the  barns  and  oast-house  steeples, 
among  which  here  and  there  a  lantern  shed  a  tricky  light. 
Clem  and  Polly  went  home  to  Pookwell  to  their  tea. 

Like  a  good  housewife,  Mrs.  Clem  had  damped  down  the 
kitchen  fire  with  slack,  and  now  she  stuck  in  the  poker,  and 
up  roared  the  flames,  with  a  glow  on  the  rafters.  Clem  sat 
down  contentedly  in  his  chair  and  lit  his  pipe.  He  watched 
the  kettle  boil,  while  she  laid  their  tea.  It  was  only  bread  and 
butter,  for  they  could  not  afford  to  have  brawn  and  pickles 
and  such  delicacies  every  day;  but  there  was  plenty  of  it,  even 
for  Clem's  appetite,  and  they  were  both  satisfied.  Neither  of 
them  spoke  much;  it  was  the  comfortable  hour  of  silence; 
afterwards  they  would  pull  in  their  chairs  to  the  fire  and  have 
a  bit  of  a  talk. 

Clem  was  in  the  act  of  pouring  his  third  cup  into  his 
saucer,  when  a  footstep  sounded  on  the  garden  path,  and 
the  next  minute  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door. 

"Come  in,"  cried  Polly,  for  the  door  was  on  the  latch,  and 
Jim  walked  in  with  a  yellow  envelope  in  his  hand. 

"It's  a  telegram  just  come  from  Mabel.  She  wants  to  know 
whur  Robert  is." 

Clem  and  Polly  stared  with  open  mouths  at  such  a  lordly 
form  of  inquiry. 

"Bob  shud  ought  to  have  bin  hoame  hours  agone,"  said 
Clem;  "he  started  just  after  two." 

"I  toald  you  as  he  shudn't  have  gone  aloan,"  said  Polly. 

"Maybe  he's  at  some  pub  or  other,"  suggested  Jim.  "But 
I  thought  as  I'd  come  ariiound  and  ask  you,  in  case  you'd  found 
him  here  when  you  got  back." 

"Lemme  see  wot  she  says,"  said  Polly.  "  'Is  Robert  with  you 
said  would  be  home  four  very  anxious  Mabel.'  That  mun  have 
cost  her  more'n  a  shilling  wud  the  address.  It's  just  lik  her 
to  telegraph  instead  of  sending  a  man  riiound  lik  any  sensible 
person." 

"It's  'reply  paid.'  That  means  we  mun  send  an  answer 
back." 

"Well,  say  'No';  it's  cheap,  anyways." 


i66  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Fur  shaame,  missus,"  said  Clem,  "to  be  so  down  on  her.  I 
reckon  she's  larmentable  scared." 

"Why?  'Cos  her  maaster  aun't  hoame  two  hours  after  he 
said  he  would.    She  doan't  know  naun  about  men." 

"Reckon  she's  brung  up  Bob  to  kip  his  hours,  and,  anyways, 
he  doan't  do  any  roving  these  times,  I  mun  say  as  I'm  a  bit 
scared  myself." 

"Well,  let's  send  her  an  answer  back,"  said  Jim.  'Bob  left 
market  at  two  know  nothing  about  him.'  Will  that  do?" 

"It  sounds  a  bit  as  if  we  dudn't  care,"  said  Clem.  "Let's 
say  as  we're  having  a  look  fur  him." 

"Whur  can  we  look?" 

"I  can  run  up  to  Haiselman's,  anyways,  and  ask  if  they  saw 
him  go  past." 

"Well,  let's  send  the  answer  fust;  the  boy's  waiting.  How'U 
this  do:  'Bob  started  home  at  two  making  inquiries'?" 

Clem  and  Polly  thought  that  it  did  very  well,  so  it  was 
written  out  on  the  form  and  given  to  the  telegraph  boy  at 
Bodingmares.  Clem  immediately  set  out  for  Haiselman's; 
he  was  terribly  anxious,  and  reproached  himself  for  the  tran- 
quil state  of  mind  in  which  he'd  accepted  Robert's  lonely 
departure.  "If  I'd  thought  as  he'd  be  lik  to  do  wuss  than 
vrother,  I'd  have  taaken  Spongey  out  of  the  shafts  and  rid 
after  un,  surelye.  But  I  let  un  go,  and  now  his  harm  ull  be 
my  doing;  reckon  I  doan't  think  of  things  as  I    shud  ought." 

No  one  had  seen  Bob  at  Haiselman's  but  then  they  weren't 
obliged  to  have  seen  him  if  he  had  merely  ridden  past  in 
the  lane.  Clem's  first  enlightenment  came  on  the  way  home 
when  he  met  Shovell  of  Mountpumps  riding  eastward.  It 
struck  Clem  to  ask  him  if  he  had  seen  Robert. 

"Yes,  I've  seen  him,  about  three  or  four  hour  agone;  he 
wur  over  by  Delmonden." 

"Delmonden!" 

"Yes,  riding  out  of  the  Parish." 

"Did  you  spik  to  un?" 

"I  wished  un  good  day,  but  he  took  no  notice." 

Clem  was  now  really  frightened.  What  had  made  Bob  take 
the  Kent  road?    He  hadn't  even  set  out  for  home,  then.  .  .  . 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  167 

Was  he  going  to  Goudhurst  to  see  Mr.  Beeman?  It  was  just 
possible.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  was  really  on  his  way  to 
Goudhurst  he  would  not  have  gone  by  Delmonden,  which  was 
a  couple  of  miles  off  the  high  road;  he  would  have  gone  by 
Hawkhurst  and  Gill's  Green.  .  .  .  Where  could  he  be  going 
like  this  alone,  riding  off  alone  from  his  wife  and  his  brother 
and  his  friends?  Perhaps  his  mind  had  given  way  under  the 
strain  of  its  ovm  black  ideas,  and  he  was  mad,  wandering 
about  aimlessly  in  the  lanes  and  fields  ...  or  perhaps  he  had 
resolved  to  kill  himself.  He  would  hang  himself  or  drown 
himself  in  some  lonely  place.  .  .  . 

Clem  hurried  back  to  Pookwell,  where  he  found  Polly  anx- 
iously waiting  for  him.  She  had  repented  of  her  hard  words 
towards  Mabel,  and  was  eager  to  atone  for  them  by  going  over 
to  Campany's  Hatch  and  comforting  the  poor  terrified  wife, 

"Reckon  she'll  be  half  out  of  her  mind  when  she  gits  our 
telegrapht.  We  mun  go  to  her,  Clemmy.  It  aun't  right  fur 
her  to  be  aloan." 

"Wot  time  is  it?" 

"It's  only  just  gone  seven;  we  can  be  there  before  eight  if 
Jim  lets  us  have  the  trap." 

"He  mun  give  us  Nimrod,  then;  Spongey  ull  never  do  it  so 
quick." 

"Of  course  he'll  give  us  Nimrod;  he  wurn't  out  but  an  hour 
this  marnun.    Anyways,  you  go  and  ask  him." 

Clem  went  off  to  Bodingmares,  and  came  back  with  Nimrod 
in  the  trap.  Jim,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  glad  that  they  were 
going  over  to  Campany's  Hatch,  for  Mary  had  pointed  out  to 
him  the  harm  that  might  come  out  of  Mabel's  being  left  soli- 
tary in  a  state  of  nerves  and  hysteria — such  as  alone  could 
have  accounted  for  such  unprecedented  action  as  a  telegram — 
and  if  Clem  and  Polly  had  not  undertaken  to  go  and  see  her, 
he  would  have  been  tormented  all  the  evening  through  by  an 
uneasy  feeling  that  he  ought  to  have  gone  himself. 

The  night  was  fine,  with  one  or  two  big  scattered  stars  in 
the  black  sky.  The  roads  were  hard  with  the  recent  frosts, 
and  Nimrod  was  fresh  from  an  afternoon  in  his  stable.  So 
it  was  well  before  eight  that  Clem  cleared  the  white  gate-posts 


i68  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

of  Campany's  drive,  and  lurched  up  the  marl  and  gravel  track 
towards  the  house. 

"She'll  think  it's  Robert,"  said  Polly.  "Cry  out  to  her  as 
it's  us,  Clem." 

"She  knows  Bob  aun't  got  the  trap,  silly — and  there  she  is 
at  the  door.    Hallo,  Mabel — has  Bob  come  hoame  yit?" 

"Doan't  ask  her  out  lik  that,  you  owl.  We  thought  we'd 
come  over  and  see  you,  Mabel,  as  you  seemed  vrothered  a  bit 
— or  you'd  never  have  sent  a  telegrapht,  surelye.  There's 
naun  to  fret  over.    I've  known  Clem  be  four  hours  laate." 

Clem's  eyes  and  mouth  opened  v/ide  as  he  lifted  her  down. 
He  wondered  what  she  would  say  next. 

"I'm  glad  you've  come,"  said  Mabel.    "I'm  at  my  wits'  end." 

Her  voice  sounded  tired — it  drooped  and  had  a  strange  weak 
quiver  in  it.  She  stood  leaning  against  the  doorpost,  wearing 
her  husband's  overcoat.  She  had  evidently  been  down  the  drive 
again  and  again  to  look  for  him. 

"Cheer  up — he'll  be  in  to  his  supper,  I'm  certain  sure.  And, 
Mabel,  it  ud  be  middling  kind  of  you  to  git  us  a  cup  of  tea. 
Reckon  it's  coald  driving." 

Clem  put  a  rug  over  Nimrod,  and  they  all  went  into  the 
kitchen,  where  the  kettle  was  boiling  over  in  a  subdued,  dis- 
heartened way.  Polly  helped  Mabel  get  the  tea,  while  she 
talked  cheerily  of  the  general  errancy  of  husbands,  their  late 
hours,  and  unaccountable  habits.  Mabel  seemed  to  take  heart 
a  little — the  occupation,  the  company,  the  talk,  all  made  her 
feel  less  blind  and  helpless  in  her  trouble. 

"I  dare  say  I'm  silly  worrying  like  this — it's  being  alone 
all  day  and  Bob  behaving  so  funny  as  he's  done  for  the  last 
six  weeks." 

"He's  bin  laate  before,  surelye." 

"Not  since  we  came  home  from  Goudhurst." 

Clem  said  nothing.  He  could  not  put  on  Polly's  easy  affec- 
tation of  cheerfulness.  She  was  pretending,  of  course,  for  he 
had  told  her  about  Bob's  being  seen  over  at  Delmonden,  but 
she  was  trying  to  keep  Mabel's  spirits  up  for  the  sake  of 
Mabel's  child.    That  was  just  like  Polly. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  169 

"Maybe  he's  doing  some  business  at  a  farm — caame  up 
sudden  on  his  way  back." 

"Not  likely — and  I  can't  think  of  any  business  that  ud  take 
him  all  this  time.  Oh,  there's  no  good  your  talking,  Poll.  I'm 
sure  he's  up  to  some  harm,  and  I  can't  bear  it — I  can't  bear 
it." 

She  laid  her  arms  on  the  table  and  burst  out  crying.  Polly 
tried  to  soothe  her,  but  the  short  reaction  of  comfort  was  over, 
and  she  sobbed  and  cried  hysterically. 

"Oh,  it's  all  too  cruel — I've  had  such  a  ghastly  time  .  .  . 
ever  since  my  marriage  .  .  .  oh,  if  I'd  known  it  ud  be  like 
this  .  .  .  there  was  only  just  a  little  happiness  ...  at  the 
beginning  .  .  .  and  now  it's  all  terrible  ...  if  only  I  knew 
where  he  was  .  .  .  but  I'm  sure  .  .  .  I'm  sure  .  .  .  he's  with 
that  woman." 

"Mabel!" 

Both  Clem  and  Polly  shouted  her  name  together. 

"You  doan't  mean  it!"  cried  Polly  indignantly.  "Oh, 
Mabel,  I'd  never  thought  it  of  you.  You  doan't  tell  me 
as  all  this  time  you've — as  all  this  is  because  you're  jealous." 

"What  else  am  I  to  be,  when  he  stops  out  to  all  hours, 
after  he'd  promised  me  to  be  home?  I  know  he  still  loves  her 
— I  know  he  still  wants  her — oh,  I've  seen  it  in  his  eyes, 
ever  so  many  times,  when  you  all  thought  he  was  only  worry- 
ing about  religion.  It's  Hannah  he  wants,  not  God — and 
it's  only  'cos  you're  such  fools  that  you  don't  see  it." 

"It  aun't  true,"  said  Clem,  crimson  with  anger.  "He  never 
gives  her  a  thought.  You  shud  ought  to  be  ashaamed  of  your- 
self, spikking  so — and  you  may  live  to  be  sorry.  Shovell  of 
Mountpumps  saw  him  riding  over  by  Delmonden  this  after- 
noon. I  pray  as  he  aun't  gone  mad,  or  drownded  himself,  or 
hanged  himself  on  a  tree." 

"Delmonden!  What  does  that  show  but  that  she's  some- 
where over  that  way?  Why  should  he  ride  four  miles  to  Del- 
monden to  hang  himself?  He  could  do  that  anywhere.  No 
— that  shows  me  plain — I  know — I'm  sure — he's  after  her, 
and  you'll  never  make  me  think  different.    You're  all  blind — 


170  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

blind.  You  don't  care  tuppence  for  me  .  .  .  how  he  deceives 
me  .  .  .  it's  only  him  you  think  of,  who's  led  me  such  a  life, 
who's " 

"Be  quiet!"  said  Clem.    "Thur  he  is,  surelye." 

They  were  all  silent.  A  horse's  hoofs  could  be  heard  thud- 
ding and  sucking  on  the  marl  of  the  drive.  They  came  quickly 
nearer,  and  stopped  at  the  door. 

Mabel  turned  pale,  and  for  a  moment  looked  as  if  she 
would  faint. 

"It  may  be  just  anyone "  began  Polly.     But  the  next 

moment  the  house  door  opened,  and  then  the  door  of  the 
room. 

"Bob!"  cried  Clem,  as  his  brother  came  in. 

Robert  was  hot  and  dishevelled;  his  coat  was  plastered  with 
mud  down  one  side,  and  dead  leaves  and  grass  were  sticking 
to  him.  His  hair  was  all  rough  and  sticky  under  his  cap,  and 
in  general  he  looked  as  if  he  had  had  a,  fight  with  somebody." 

"You  beast!"  cried  Mabel,  and  broke  into  fresh  tears. 

"Bob,"  repeated  Clem,  going  up  to  him.  He  grasped  his 
hand,  and  then  was  suddenly  conscious  of  a  change  in  him. 
This  was  not  the  desperate  and  mournful  Bob  who  had 
ridden  off  alone  from  Salehurst  market,  but  a  man  who  had 
marvellously  regained  confidence  in  himself,  who  no  longer 
went  on  all  fours,  but  stood  upright.  Clem  was  suddenly 
struck  by  a  terrible  suspicion  that  perhaps  Mabel  was  right, 
and  that  he  had  been  with  Hannah  after  all.  .  .  . 

"I'm  sorry  I'm  laate,"  said  Robert.  "Doan't  cry,  Mabel. 
I'm  sorry,  kid." 

His  eyes  were  shining,  there  was  a  ring  in  his  voice,  and 
about  his  entire  disreputable  appearance  an  air  of  confidence 
and  self-possession  which  seemed  to  point  to  nothing  but  a 
successful  love  affair.    Clem's  doubts  grew  stronger. 

"Whur  have  you  bin?"  he  asked. 

"Over  by  Scales  Crouch — nearly  to  Seacox  Heath.  I'll  tell 
you  about  it  afterwards." 

"He's  bin  with  Hannah,"  sobbed  Mabel. 

"No  I  aun't,"  said  Robert,  but  quite  without  resentment. 

"I  don't  believe  you.    You've  told  me  so  many  lies." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  171 

"Well  it  aun't  a  lie  this  time,  so  doan't  git  upset,  my  dear." 

He  went  over  to  her,  pulled  her  head  against  him  and  kissed 
her,  though  she  shrank  from  him.  He  was  more  than  ever 
like  a  man  in  love,  whose  overflowing  love  spills  itself  upon 
every  surrounding  object,  however  unresponsive  and  mean. 
But  somehow  Clem  could  not  help  believing  him  when  he 
said  he  had  not  been  with  Hannah. 

"What  made  j-ou  stop  out  like  that,  then?"  asked  Mabel  sul- 
lenly.   "You've  scared  me  to  death,  and  Clem  and  Polly  too." 

"I'm  sorry  I  scared  you.    But  I  met  a  friend." 

"You've  got  some  fine  friends — they're  always  bringing 
trouble.    Who  was  this  one?" 

"The  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

^label  broke  into  loud  sobbing. 

"Oh,  that  beats  it — that  beats  all!  You're  as  mad  as  a 
March  hare — not  fit  to  be  out  alone.  Oh,  I  shall  die  of  the 
shame  of  you.  .  .  ." 

"Hush,  IMabel — hush,"  said  Polly.  She  put  her  arm  round 
her  and  tried  to  make  her  rise.  "Come  upstairs  wud  me. 
Reckon  you'd  lik  to  go  to  bed — it's  laate  and  you're  tired, 
surelye." 

At  first  Mabel  tried  to  push  Polly  away,  then  she  suddenly 
yielded.  Sobbing  bitterly,  she  went  off  upstairs,  and  Robert 
and  Clem  were  left  alone  together. 


§  46 

For  a  while  neither  of  them  spoke,  then  Clem  said: 

"Well,  Bob— wot's  happened?" 

"I've  got  Salvation." 

Clem  said  nothing.  He  remembered  an  earlier  occasion 
on  which  his  brother  had  "got  Salvation"— with  indifferent 
results.  But  he  could  not  ignore  the  change  in  him  now.  The 
very  way  he  sat  at  the  table,  the  way  he  moved,  the  way  he 
spoke,  told  of  some  wonderful  event,  some  experience  that 
had  wakened  into  strength  and  life  the  tortured  shadow  of  a 
man  who  had  ridden  away  from  Salehurst.    Clem  fumbled  for 


172  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

his  pipe,  took  it  out,  filled  it,  and  lit  it  slowly,  then  handed 
his  pouch  to  Bob. 

"No  thank  'ee.  I've  done  wud  that.  I'll  never  smoke  nor 
drink  so  long  as  I  live,  please  God." 

Clem  was  a  little  taken  aback.  A  religion  which  made  an 
offence  of  one's  harmless  and  comforting  baccy  and  occasional 
pint  could  not  be  regarded  altogether  as  a  blessing,  and  he 
had  a  moment  of  rejoicing  in  his  own  unregenerate  state.  How- 
ever, as  he  stared  at  Bob  he  could  not  help  realizing  that  he 
would  be  very  happy  all  the  same. 

"Clem,  you'd  never  believe  all  that  Lord's  done  fur  me." 

"You'll  tell,  surelye?" 

"Reckon  I  will — oh,  Clem,  reckon  I'm  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
and  the  half  was  not  told  me." 

"I  hope  as  you've  got  shut  of  all  them  tar'ble  ideas  of  youm. 
You  doan't  look  now  as  if  you  wur  scared  of  hell." 

"Reckon  I  aun't  scared.  Wot  is  hell  to  God's  Elect?  I'm 
saaved,  and  Satan  ull  never  git  me." 

"How  do  you  know?  I  doan't  mean  as  I'm  doubting.  Bob. 
But  you  mun  tell  me  wot's  happened.  You  looked  down 
enough  at  the  market,  surelye.  Wot  maade  you  ride  off  all 
aloan?" 

"I  felt  as  if  I  mun  git  off  somewheres  by  myself,  or  my  head 
ud  bust.  I  doan't  want  to  hurt  your  feelings,  but  I  felt  as  if  I 
cudn't  abide  your  talk.  My  head  seemingly  had  hammers  in 
it,  and  my  heart  too.  Reckon  I  wur  praaperly  upset.  I 
thought  as  I'd  go  hoame,  and  then  I  thought  as  I'd  go  and  see 
Mus'  Beeman,  and  then  I  thought,  'It's  all  no  use,  he  can't 
tell  me  naun  to  comfort  me;  I'm  lost  and  I  mun  know  it.' 
Then  I  thought  I'd  go  and  hang  myself." 

"Bob,  I  was  afeard  as  you'd  do  that." 

"You  need  never  have  bin  afeard,  fur  I'd  never  have  done 
it.  I'd  have  got  maybe  forty  year  more  hell  that  way,  and 
that  ud  have  bin  praaperly  silly.  I  rode  near  up  to  Seacox 
Heath  thinking  of  it,  and  I  saw  how  unsensible  it  ud  be.  Then 
I  saw  as  the  only  sensible  thing  to  do  wud  be  to  go  and  git 
drunk,  and  then  git  hoald  of  a  gal  and  have  a  good  time.  I 
mun  git  all  the  pleasure  I  can  out  of  life,  sinst  I  can't  be  any 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  173 

wuss  than  damned.  That  wur  sensible,  but  I  found — it  wur 
queer — but  I  found  as  I  dudn't  want  to  do  it.  I  knew  as  I 
cud  have  got  no  happiness  out  of  drink  or  gals — not  even  out 
of  Hannah — the  only  thing  I  wanted  wur  God,  and  sinst  He 
wudn't  have  me,  thur  wur  naun  I'd  taake  instead.  Then  I 
went  and  tied  old  Stranger  to  a  geate  near  Mopesden,  and  I 
climbed  over  into  the  field,  fur  I  felt  all  mazed  and  tired,  and 
I  laid  down  on  the  grass  among  the  dead  leaves  that  had  come 
over  from  the  wood,  and  reckon  I  maade  myself  praaperly 
dirty,  but  I  dudn't  care.  All  I  cud  think  on  wur  God,  and  I 
thought  'He's  wonderful.  He's  the  wonderfullest  thing  thur 
is,  and  if  I  cud  feel  I  wur  Chosen  of  Him,  thur  ud  be  naun 
else  I'd  want  beside.'  Then  I  think  as  He's  true  in  all  His 
ways  and  righteous  in  all  His  works,  and  as  it's  right  and 
praaper  as  I  shud  go  to  hell  if  He'd  sooner  it  happened;  and 
I  said,  'Lord,  Thy  will  be  done,  I  doan't  know  naun.  I'd  go 
to  hell  to  please  Thee.'  Then  I  said  'Amen'  to  my  own  damna- 
tion." 

He  stopped,  and  with  his  bright  shining  eyes  looked  straight 
at  Clem,  who  was  sucking  violently  at  the  stem  of  his  extin- 
guished pipe. 

"I  said  'Amen'  to  my  own  damnation,"  he  repeated,  "and 
then  it  all  happened.  It  wur  lik  a  shining,  silver  light,  and  ft 
seemed  to  come  all  over  me,  and  my  heart  went  light  wud 
peace  and  gladness,  and  then  summat  in  me  seemed  to  say, 
'I  have  loved  thee  wud  an  everlasting  love,  therefore  wud 
loving  kindness  have  I  drawn  thee.'  And  then  I  seemed  to 
melt  for  joy,  and  I  kneeled  up  on  my  knees,  and  I  took  my 
Bible  here  out  of  my  pocket,  and  I  said,  'Lord,  I  reckon  I'm 
lik  Gideon  and  want  a  sign.  Please  give  me  a  sign.'  Then 
I  opened  the  Book — and  wot  do  you  think  I  saw? — why,  them 
very  saame  words:  'I  have  loved  thee  wud  an  everlasting  love, 
therefore  wud  loving  kindness  have  I  drawn  thee.'  That 
wur  three  times  I  see  them,  and  three  times  is  true.  That 
wur  the  text  hanging  on  the  wall  when  I  wur  in  Mus'  Beeman's 
houF«,  and  he  said  them  wards  wur  fur  the  Elect.  So  sinst 
God  sent  them  to  me,  reckon  I'm  one  of  the  Elect,  reckon  I'm 
one  of  God's  Chosen.    I'm  saafe,  I'll  never  go  in  fear  of  hell 


174  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

no  more.  Oh,  Clem,  when  I  think  wot  I  wur — a  very  worm 
and  no  man,  as  the  Scriptures  say — and  then  I  think  how  He 
has  accepted  me,  not  fur  any  legal  works  of  mine,  but  all 
through  His  Free  Grace,  I  reckon  I'll  give  all  my  life  to  Him, 
to  sarve  Him  and  love  Him,  and  reckon  as  I'll  never  drink 
nor  smoke  nor  grumble  at  Mabel  as  long  as  I  live." 

''You  spik  just  lik  a  Preacher,  Bob,"  said  Clem  admiringly. 

"It's  the  Gospel's  on  my  tongue.  Oh,  Clem,  reckon  I  cud 
bust  the  plaace  up  wud  love  and  joy.  Reckon  I  mun  go  now 
and  tell  Mabel  wot  I've  toald  you." 

"I'd  leave  her  aloan  at  present,"  said  Clem  warily;  "she's 
middling  tired.    You  can  tell  her  to-morrer." 

"Maybe  you're  right.  Anyways,  I  can  talk  to  you — and 
Polly  when  she  comes." 

Clem  was  afraid  that  Polly  might  not  be  quite  sympathetic, 
but  when  at  last  she  came  down  from  Mabel's  room,  having 
left  her  asleep,  she  listened  to  Robert's  story — which  he  never 
seemed  weary  of  telling — with  unwonted  graciousness.  After 
all,  his  look  and  manner  gave  a  better  account  of  him  than 
his  poor,  clumsy  tongue.  His  tongue  could  only  tie  knots  in  the 
English  language  and  scatter  broadcast  the  jargon  of  Calvinism, 
but  his  eyes  and  his  voice  conveyed  a  less  tangled  wisdom — 
in  them  he  carried  his  experience  undefiled  by  his  poor  attempts 
to  express  it.  Clem  was  glad  that  Bob  had  found  comfort 
and  peace,  even  if  he  called  them  by  queer,  mouth-filling 
names.  Polly  could  not,  perhaps,  go  as  far  as  Clem;  but  evi- 
dently she  was  glad  to  see  her  brother-in-law  so  changed  for 
the  better;  and  when  she  went  away,  she  gave  him  a  sisterly 
kiss  along  with  her  injunction  "not  to  waake  pore  Mabel,  but 
leave  it  till  to-morrer." 

"Well,  wot  do  you  think  about  it?"  asked  Clem  as  they 
drove  home. 

"It's  early  now  to  see  how  it'll  wark.  But  I  can't  help  wish- 
ing as  he  hadn't  got  hold  of  such  a  Salvation  sort  of  re- 
ligion." 

"He  wur  always  that  way  of  thinking — it  wur  pore  faather's 
way,  and  reckon  it's  a  good  way,  though  I  never  cud  taake  to  it 
praaper  myself." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  175 

"I  doan't  want  to  say  naun  agaunst  him — pore  Bob ;  I  guess 
he's  had  his  bad  times,  and  I'm  middling  glad  as  he's  out  of 
them,  fur  a  while,  anyhow.  But  he's  a  queer  chap,  maaster, 
and  I  can't  help  thinking  as  he'll  find  as  much  trouble  on  his 
way  to  God  as  ever  he  found  on  his  way  to  the  devil." 


PART  II 


PART  II 


The  following  days  of  that  Christmas  time  were  for  Robert 
a  period  of  humble  and  wonderful  happiness.  His  whole  life 
was  changed  by  the  removal  of  the  shadow  that  had  dark- 
ened it.  WTien  he  awoke  in  the  morning  he  wanted  to  shout 
and  sing,  when  he  had  eaten  his  breakfast  he  wanted  to  go 
out  and  tell  everyone  how  good  God  had  been  to  him;  often 
when  he  was  out  at  work  he  would  feel,  as  he  told  Clem,  as 
if  a  bucket  of  light  had  been  upset  over  him,  and  still  grasping 
his  spade,  or  the  handle  of  his  plough,  he  would  fall  on  his 
knees,  and  give  himself  up  to  an  ecstasy  of  love  and  thanks- 
giving. His  whole  niind  and  heart  had  been  yielded  to  the  new 
experience;  he  could  think  and  speak  of  nothing  else,  and 
things  which  had  been  but  common  things  till  then  became 
suddenly  glorious  and  divine. 

This  transformation  showed  itself  most  clearly  in  his  human 
relationships.  He  loved  everyone  as  he  had  never  loved  before. 
He  loved  Mabel  till  his  love  felt  like  a  great,  white  fire  that 
would  burn  her  up;  he  loved  his  mother  and  brothers  and 
sister,  and  his  step-father  and  sister-in-law,  and  was  con- 
tinually doing  them  small  acts  of  kindness;  he  loved  all  the 
farmers  round  Campany's  Hatch,  the  men  he  met  at  market  or 
at  auctions  or  at  work  from  day  to  day.  They  all  shone  in 
the  new  light,  they  were  all  made  in  the  image  of  the  God 
who  had  delivered  him,  through  whose  bounty  he  now  walked 
the  fields  in  peace,  for  the  Flaming  Judgment  was  taken 
away  .  .  .  "and  there  shall  be  no  more  curse." 

The  only  flaw  in  his  joyful  mysteries  was  his  inability  to 
share  them  with  others.  He  made  no  effort  to  keep  them  to 
himself,  he  held  back  no  sweet  secret,  he  was  always  ready  to 

179 


i8o  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

tell  the  story  of  his  conversion  to  whoever  was  willing  to  listen, 
and  soon  it  was  well  known  throughout  the  parishes  of  Sale- 
hurst  and  Bodiam  and  High  Tilt.  But  no  one  seemed  able  to 
see  the  light  that  he  saw  or  feel  the  warmth  that  he  felt.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  tendency  was  to  regard  him  either  as  an 
Outrage  or  as  a  Joke.  To  many  there  was  something  decidedly 
humorous  about  Bob  Fuller  in  a  state  of  Salvation — Bob  who 
would  not  set  foot  in  a  public-house,  though  everyone  knew 
he  had  been  chucked  out  of  the  King's  Head,  blind  drunk, 
scarcely  three  months  ago — Bob  whose  tongue  now  rolled 
with  Scripture  as  once  it  had  rolled  with  oaths — Bob  who 
would  take  you  solemnly  apart  and  with  protruding  blue 
eyes  tell  you  the  story  of  his  Conversion,  he  who  used  to  have 
the  biggest  collection  of  smutty  stories  in  the  district  .  .  .  you 
really  couldn't  help  laughing.  Others,  however,  saw  more  dis- 
grace than  humour  in  his  state.  They  were  shocked  and  dis- 
gusted to  see  the  man  who  had  been  Hannah  Iden's  lover,  who 
had  been  picked  up  drunk  out  of  the  ditch  at  Megrim's  Hill, 
now  telling  everyone  that  he  was  saved,  that  he  was  a  Chosen 
Vessel,  the  Elect  of  God.  It  was  an  outrage  to  their  sense  of 
decency — they  smelt  cant, 

"I  likked  him  better  when  he  wur  an  honest  sinner,"  said 
Pix  of  Little  London. 

Bob  did  not  find  his  family  much  more  sympathetic.  Jim 
and  Mary  saw  him  again  an  enemy  to  their  credit. 

"Wotsumdever  ull  Bob  do  next?— that's  wot  I'd  lik  to  hear," 
said  Mary;  "fust  it's  a  woman,  and  then  it's  drink,  and  then 
it's  the  devil,  and  then  it's  God;  reckon  he's  tried  every  way 
to  disgrace  us  as  he  knows." 

"I've  a-done  wud  Bob,"  said  Jim;  "he  may  do  wot  he  pleases, 
I  aun't  a-going  to  vrother  about  him  no  more." 

"I've  naun  agaunst  religion  in  its  praaper  plaace,  but 
the  plaace  fur  religion  is  Church  on  Sunday,  just  as  the  plaace 
fur  your  dinner  is  the  table  at  dinner-time  and  not  all  over 
everywheres  all  times  of  the  day.  Even  the  fowls  know  as 
they  shudn't  ought  to  lay  their  eggs  saave  in  the  boxes." 

"I  can't  help  thinking  as  pore  faather's  at  the  root  of  this. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  181 

He  brung  us  all  up  to  think  serious,  and  now  Bob's  thought 
himself  upside  down." 

"He  hasn't  stuck  to  faather's  ideas.  He  won't  put  his  head 
into  faather's  Church  at  the  Throws,  saying  as  the  minister's 
an  Armenian,  though  heaven  knows  as  he  is  as  English  as  me 
and  you." 

"Well,  he's  his  own  maaster  now,  so  he  can  be,  as  they  say, 
a  law  unto  himself  and  a  fool  unto  himself — I  shan't  meddle." 

Robert  found  his  mother  a  little  kinder  than  Jim  and  Mary. 
She  would  let  him  sit  with  his  arm  round  her  and  tell  her  of 
his  wonderful  deliverance,  and  when  he  urged  her  to  seek 
deliverance  too,  she  would  say,  "Yes,  dearie,"  in  her  soft, 
contented  voice.  But  he  knew  that  all  she  really  felt  was 
gladness  that  he  was  eating  and  sleeping  better  now,  and  no 
longer  had  that  tar'ble  worry  on  his  mind.  She  was  shut  up, 
he  told  himself,  in  the  comforts  of  her  home,  and  the  love  of 
her  husband — she  did  not  realize  that  she  was  poor  and  blind 
and  naked. 

As  for  Clem,  though  he  was  by  far  the  most  sympathetic 
of  the  family,  he  also  caused  him  the  most  sorrow.  For 
Clem's  eternal  state  meant  even  more  to  him  than  his  mother's 
or  Mabel's — and  there  was  no  use  pretending  that  Clem  was 
saved.  He  had  never  gone  through  any  experience  remotely  re- 
sembling a  conversion,  and  though  he  was  alone  in  treating 
Robert's  experience  with  respect,  he  evidently  understood  it  no 
more  than  the  others.  He  was  just  a  happy,  contented,  hard- 
working, clean-living,  well-behaved  Vessel  of  Wrath — who  en- 
joyed his  wife  and  his  pipe  and  his  beer  and  his  dinner  all 
unheeding  of  the  claims  of  a  jealous  God.  Bob's  arguments 
and  exhortations  were  all  in  vain. 

"I'd  be  saaved  if  I  cud,  surelye.  It  aun't  as  if  I'm  stand- 
ing out  agiiunst  it — it's  only  as  it  doan't  happen." 

"Then  you  shud  ought  to  be  in  grief  and  trouble,  banging 
your  head  and  calling  yourself  a  sinner.  But  you  look  lik  a 
young  horse  out  at  grass  .  .  .  reckon  you  doan't  care  tuppence 
about  the  Wrath  to  Come." 

"I'm  hem  sorry.  Bob — leastways,  if  you're  vrothered.     But 


i82  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

seeing  how  things  are,  maybe  it's  as  well  as  I  doan't  sim  to 
mind.  Reckon  I  aun't  the  sort  of  chap  wot  them  things 
happen  to,  and  I've  no  right  to  expect  anythink  wonderful  lik 
you  and  pore  faather." 

Clem  and  Polly  were  indignant  at  the  attitude  Mabel  had 
chosen  to  take  up.  As  soon  as  she  had  got  over  the  relief  of 
having  once  again  a  rational  and  good-humoured  husband,  her 
ingrained  antipathy  to  religion  asserted  itself.  She  looked  upon 
Bob  as  "soft,"  and  she  was  disgusted  with  his  new  ways — 
his  total  abstinence,  whether  of  glass  or  pipe,  his  awkward 
righteousness  which  always  made  him  explain  and  expose  the 
worst  side  of  his  stock  at  markets,  and  drive  bargains  that 
sent  the  other  man  home  either  gloating  or  guilty.  She  was 
miserable  and  shamed  when  he  insisted  on  saying  grace  before 
meals,  when  he  knelt  down  night  and  morning  by  the  bedside 
and  said  his  prayers  like  a  child,  with  his  hands  folded  before 
him. 

"I  thought  I'd  married  a  man,"  once  she  taunted  bitterly, 
"and  now  it  seems  I've  married  a  Young  Man — a  Young  Man's 
Christian  Association." 

Robert  bore  gently  with  her  tongue,  and  this  made  her 
angrier  still.  She  had  always  covertly  worshipped  his  arro- 
gance, even  though  she  had  trained  him  to  submission  in  sm.all 
things — his  doggishness,  even  though  that  had  fallen  short 
of  town  standards.  Her  experience  in  Bulverhythe  had  taught 
her  to  associate  religion  with  weedy  young  men  who  played 
halma  and  had  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternoons,  or  with  young 
women  who  looked  as  if  their  hats  had  been  dropped  on  their 
heads  by  a  passing  aeroplane.  The  meekness  of  her  husband's 
tongue  made  her  forget  the  strength  of  his  young  body,  which 
seemed  to  grow  in  vigour  now  that  it  was  delivered  from  the 
burden  of  the  mind.  His  love  for  her,  also,  seemed  to  have 
taken  on  a  new  quality.  It  was  more  diffident  and  beseech- 
ing; it  had  glamours  and  ardours  for  which  she  could  find  no 
response,  and  doubts  and  hesitations  for  which  she  had  noth- 
ing but  contempt.  With  a  bitterness  which  soon  began  to 
show  in  the  lines  of  her  soft  face  she  realized  that  his  chief. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  183 

almost  his  only  desire  towards  her  was  to  see  her  as  he  was, 
to  make  her  as  \asionary  and  ridiculous  and  soft  as  he. 

"I  believe  5'ou'd  make  me  as  big  a  fool  as  yourself,  if  you 
could,"  she  said  one  day,  when  he  had  rebuked  her  for  want- 
ing to  go  to  the  pictures. 

He  looked  at  her  with  imploring  tenderness. 

"Mabel,  I  cud  never  be  happy  fur  ever  in  heaven  if  you 
wur  being  miserable  fur  ever  in  hell." 

"I  should  hope  not!" 

"But  I  may  have  to  be,"  said  Robert  pathetically. 


Towards  the  end  of  January  Robert's  son  was  bom.  Mabel 
would  have  preferred  a  girl,  for  "they're  so  much  nicer  to 
dress,"  but  Bob  was  delighted — he  saw  himself  being  bom 
again,  just  as  he  had  been  born  again  in  the  meadow  outside 
Mopesden  Wood.  He  made  endless  happy  plans  for  the  baby's 
future — plans  which,  needless  to  say,  included  his  salvation 
at  an  early  age.  Unfortunately  certain  of  these  plans  in- 
volved difficulties  with  Mabel.  To  begin  with  he  insisted  that 
the  child  should  be  called  Nathaniel,  instead  of  Arthur  Cle- 
ment, which  were  the  names  that  Mabel  and  the  rest  of  the 
family  had  chosen. 

"It  means  'given  of  God,' "  said  Robert  seriously,  "and 
reckon  that's  just  wot  he  is,  and  we  mun  call  him  after  God's 
ward  better'n  after  his  uncle  and  grandfather." 

"But  it's  a  horrid,  vulgar,  common  name,"  mourned  Mabel. 
"I  never  heard  of  a  refined  person  being  called  by  it.  Be- 
sides, if  you  must  call  him  that,  can't  you  call  him  the  others 
too?  Father,  for  one,  will  be  regular  hurt  if  you  don't,  and 
people  often  have  as  many  as  three  names." 

Robert's  chin  came  forward  dogmatically.  "I  doan't  hoald 
wud  folkses  having  a  string  of  naames.  They  dudn't  in  the 
Bible,  surelye.  We  doan't  read  there  of  folkses  having  more'n 
one  naame.  Anyways,  I  woan't  naame  my  child  after  a  heathen 
king  and  a  popish  saint." 


i84  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Clem  wur  naamed  after  the  Bells  of  St,  Clement's,  if  it's 
him  3^ou're  miscalling,"  said  Polly,  who  was  sitting  beside 
Mabel,  with  the  victim  of  the  conversation  cuddled  very  close 
in  her  arms. 

"I  woan't  have  my  child  naamed  after  a  church  of  the 
Crown  of  England,  neither." 

"No,  you'll  name  him  after  a  Baptist  chapel,"  snapped 
Mabel;  "it's  nothing  to  you  that  if  he's  called  Nathaniel  no 
one  ull  ever  take  him  for  a  gentleman." 

"I  doan't  want  him  taaken  fur  a  gentleman;  I'd  sooner  he 
wur  taaken  fur  a  Christian." 

"Oh,  you're  no  good!"  and  Mabel  began  to  cry. 

A  look  of  infinite  pain  came  into  Robert's  eyes.  He  stooped 
and  gently  patted  her  hand.     She  snatched  it  away. 

"Doan't  be  so  vrothered,  Mabel,"  comforted  Polly;  "reckon 
you  can  call  him  'Nat';  it's  a  middling  nice  naame  and  it  suits 
him  praaper." 

But  Mabel  was  not  comforted,  and  her  distress  increased 
when  she  realized  that  her  baby  was  not  even  to  be  given  his 
vulgar  name  in  the  orthodox  and  respectable  manner.  Bob 
refused  to  have  the  child  christened. 

"Wot  shud  he  be  christened  fur? — wot  can  he  know  of 
Christ?" 

That  part  of  the  problem  did  not  trouble  Mabel.  All  she 
knew  was  that,  even  if  you  went  to  chapel,  you  had  your 
child  christened  in  Church,  in  order  that  he  might  "have  god- 
fathers and  godmothers  who  should  supply  him  properly  with 
silver  spoons.  A  child  who  had  never  been  christened,  who 
had  no  godparents  or  silver  spoons,  was  a  mean  child  indeed, 
and  Mabel  swore  fretfully  that  Robert  was  not  acting  fairly 
by  his  helpless  offspring.  Then,  to  crown  all,  Robert  went  off 
to  Mr.  Beeman's  at  Goudhurst  and  was  christened  himself. 
He  called  it  a  Believer's  Baptism,  and  came  home  with  flushed 
cheeks  and  shining  eyes;  but  Mabel  cried  for  half  the  night, 
and  felt  somehow  as  if  her  husband  had  stolen  her  baby's 
baptism. 

"Half  the  country  ull  have  the  laugh  of  me,"  she  com- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  185 

plained  to  Clem  and  Polly.  "Everyone  wonders  when  the 
christening's  to  be  and  whom  I'm  having  as  godparents,  and 
then  it's  my  husband  who  goes  and  gets  christened.  The 
fool!" 

Polly  v:as  in  this  case  inclined  to  sympathize  with  her. 
She  resented  the  idea  of  Baby  being  cheated  out  of  Ms  silver 
spoons.  They  evidently  formed  no  part  of  a  Believer's  Bap- 
tism, judging  by  the  unendowed  state  'in  which  Robert  had 
come  back  from  Goudhurst. 

"Can't  we  have  him  done  wudout  Bob's  knowing?"  she 
asked  her  husband. 

"No,"  said  Clem,  "it  wudn't  be  seemly — and  we  mun  respeck 
Bob's  convictions." 

"Bob's  got  some  valiant  convictions,  as  you  might  say,  and 
I  doan't  see  why  a  pore  liddle  innocent  child  shud  suffer 
fur  them." 

Polly  sometimes  seemed  to  forget  that  she  was  only  her 
nephew's  aunt.  Her  feelings  towards  him  were  so  much  more 
mothe''ly  than  his  mother's,  that  she  had  an  occasional  way  of 
talking  as  if  he  was  hers  instead  of  Mabel's.  Curiously  enough, 
for  about  two  days  after  he  was  born,  she  could  hardly  bear 
to  look  at  him.  The  little  crumpled  thing  in  the  shawl  in 
Mabel's  arms  made  her  heart  ache  with  the  thought  of  her  own 
childlessness — for  now  she  knew  that  there  was  no  good  hoping 
any  more.  She  who  loved  babies  so  much  was  never  to  have 
one.  She  could  not  bear  to  look  at  Mabel's,  so  lukewarmly 
greeted,  so  lightly  prized.  Then  slowly  the  bitterness  had 
passed,  she  lost  a  little  of  her  longing  to  say  "Mine" — it  was 
so  sweet  to  hold  and  fondle  little  Nat  even  though  he  was  not 
hers,  to  dress  and  undress  him,  to  give  him  his  bath,  to  soothe 
him  when  he  cried,  to  give  him  his  bottle — for  he  was  a  bottle- 
fed  baby,  for  reasons  that  Mp.bel  thought  more  urgent  than 
the  doctor — and  listen  to  the  uncouth  noises  he  made  in  the 
process.  For  Polly's  intents  Mabel  was  the  ideal  mother — she 
did  not  mind  how  often  her  sister-in-law  came  and  played 
with  Baby,  or  took  him  out  or  bathed  him.  She,  who  was  so 
jealous  where  her  husband  was  concerned,  seemed  to  have  no 
jealousy  in  the  matter  of  her  child,  and  Polly  who,  if  she  had 


i86  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

been  a  mother,  would  have  kept  her  child  to  herself  as  fiercely 
as  her  husband,  marvelled  at  Mabel's  attitude,  but  was  thank- 
ful for  • 

§3 

Though  both  Clem  and  Poll}^  agreed  that  Mabel  did  not 
deserve  to  have  a  baby,  they  found  that  Robert  was  a  kind 
and  loving  father,  if  you  could  only  make  him  give  up  some 
of  his  notions.  He  v/as  devoted  to  little  Nathaniel,  and  infi- 
nitely patient  with  him.  Wlien  he  cried  at  nights  he  would 
walk  up  and  down  with  him  in  his  arms,  without  pining  for 
his  own  healthy  sleep,  never  grumbling,  never  ruffled,  though 
in  addition  to  the  baby's  cries  he  had  Mabel's  tossing  com- 
plaints that  her  night  was  spoiled  and  it  was  a  shame  that 
they  could  not  afford  to  have  a  servant  to  take  charge  of  the 
child.  Sometimes  by  day,  too,  he  would  play  with  him,  and 
his  face  would  take  on  almost  a  young  and  playful  look,  which 
v>^as  neither  like  the  old  Robert  who  loved  Hannah  Iden  nor 
like  the  new  Robert  who  was  grave  with  his  sense  of  Particular 
Mercies.  Clem  and  Polly  thought  that  perhaps  the  baby 
would  make  him  less  "queer" — his  fatherhood  would  make 
him  more  like  other  men,  and  his  religion  would  cease  to  be 
something  Particular  and  Elect  and  Separate,  but  would  be- 
come absorbed  in  his  everyday  life  and  a  part  of  common  ex- 
perience. 

But  Clem  and  Polly  did  not  quite  realize  the  power  that 
was  driving  Robert.  He  had  yet  to  show  them  the  love  of 
God,  not  as  a  diffused  inspiration,  but  as  a  concentrated  and 
explosive  force,  boxed  up  in  the  inner  chamber  of  his  heart, 
the  big  thing  in  the  little  room  which  must  inevitably  blast  its 
way  out,  even  if  it  broke  his  heart  in  the  process. 

One  market  day  in  spring  Clem,  who  was  busy  in  the 
fields  and  had  no  buying  or  selling  to  do,  did  not  go  to  High  Tilt 
till  the  afternoon.  In  the  afternoon  he  put  on  his  black  coat 
and  his  bowler  hat,  and  went  off  to  the  village  just  to  watch 
the  stock  and  prices.  It  was  not  a  very  full  market,  as  there 
was  little  movement  in  sheep  at  that  time,  and  when 
Clem  came  into  the  square  at  the  back  of  the  Royal  George 


GREEN  APPLE  HAPtVEST  187 

such  people  as  there  were  seemed  all  gathered  up  in  one 
comer.  An  auction  must  be  in  progress,  for  all  he  could  hear 
was  one  voice  lifted  above  a  general  silence.  Then  he  sud- 
denly saw  that  the  speaker  was  Robert.  What  could  he  be 
selling?  .  .  .  With  a  cold  creep  of  his  skin  he  realized  that 
Robert  was  not  selling — he  was  preaching. 

For  a  moment  Clem  stood  motionless.  He  was  appalled, 
and  then  found  himself  suddenly  angry.  What  right  had  Bob 
to  go  and  make  a  fool  of  himself  like  this?  There  he  stood, 
in  the  midst  of  a  ring  of  farmers  and  farm-hands,  many  of 
whose  respectable  backs  Clem  recognized,  holding  forth  in 
his  loud,  blurry  voice,  which  his  brother  knew  would  twist 
huskily  in  and  out  of  a  maze  of  words  till  at  last  some  frayed 
tangle  of  a  statement  was  flung  down,  complicated  by  one  or 
two  knots  of  Bethel  jargon.  Clem's  humble  respect  for 
Bob,  whether  as  man  or  as  theologian,  had  been  modified,  not 
so  much  by  recent  events  as  by  the  self-confidence  which  had 
growTi  out  of  his  own  marriage  and  heightened  experience. 
Anyways,  it  wurn't  seemly  of  Bob  to  stand  up  and  preach, 
all  in  the  open  lik  that,  him  not  being  taught.  Clem  was 
shocked,  and  not  only  on  his  own  account.  He  foresaw 
trouble  for  the  preacher:  "Reckon  he'll  put  everyone  agaunst 
him;  reckon  they're  laughing  at  him  now — I  can  see  it." 

This  was  not  quite  true.  Bob's  congregation  v/as  too  aston- 
ished and  too  respectable  to  laugh.  It  stood  round  with  ex- 
pressionless features — indeed  there  seemed  to  be  more  emotion 
concentrated  in  its  backs  than  in  its  faces.  As  Clem  drew 
nearer  he  began  to  distinguish  his  brothers  words:  "Salvation 
.  .  .  reprobation  .  .  .  silver  light  .  .  .  Particular  Mercies 
.  .  ."  all  the  stale,  familiar  expressions  that  he  had  heard  over 
and  over  again.  But  when  he  came  right  within  earshot  it 
struck  him  that  Bob  was  not,  after  all,  talking  so  badly. 
Anyhow,  he  was  plainer  and  easier  to  follow  than  when  he  had 
held  forth  to  Mabel  and  Clem  and  Polly  in  private.  For  one 
thing,  no  one  attempted  to  argue  or  interrupt,  his  words  poured 
unimpeded  over  the  silence. 

"So  that's  how  it  all  wur,  and  that's  why  I'm  here,  begging 
you,  praying  you  to  taake  warning  by  me,  and  give  up  the 


i88  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

warld  and  its  wickedness,  and  lay  hold  on  Him.  Oh,  open 
your  hearts  to  receive  His  mercies,  that  He  may  saave  you 
from  hell  and  the  Wrath  to  Come.  Reckon  I'm  a  tedious, 
poor  worm,  and  yet  He  has  chosen  me.  Hallelujah!  Oh,  re- 
ceive His  promise — there's  no  need  fur  you  to  vrother  about 
dead  warlcs;  He  just  holds  out  Salvation  to  you  lik  a  cup  of 
tea,  and  all  you've  got  to  do  is  to  taake  it  and  be  thankful. 
Reckon  I  wum't  saaved  by  the  dead  warks  of  the  leggal  con- 
science, since  I  did  naun  saave  the  warks  of  darkness.  But 
now  He's  maade  me  one  of  His  saints  in  Light.  .  .  ." 

He  seemed  to  have  reached  the  ebb  of  his  inspiration,  bfft 
struggled  to  make  some  sort  of  a  formal  ending. 

"Give  Him  your  old  broken  hearts,  so  as  He  may  give  you 
new  ones.  Thur  aun't  no  other  way  ...  it  aun't  wot  foalkses 
do  .  .  .  nor  wot  they  believe,  nuther.  .  .  ." 

"Then  wot  is  it,  maaster?" 

He  had  been  interrupted  at  last,  by  the  younger  Shovell. 
The  power  which  he  had  held  over  them  was  beginning  to 
crumble,  and  after  Stan's  question  came  an  outbreak  of  shuffles 
and  murmurs. 

Robert  stared  at  his  interrupter  with  perplexed  eyes,  then 
he  caught  sight  of  Clem  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  He 
made  a  movement  towards  him,  elbowing  past  Pont  of  Udiam 
and  a  farmer  from  Mountpumps  way. 

"I've  a-done,"  he  said  thickly.  "I've  given  you  God's  ward 
and  you  mun  taake  it.  I've  said  all  the  Spirit  gaave  me,  and 
you  mun  do  wudout  any  finish  up  or  fine  Doxology.  I  aun't 
a  preacher,  I'm  just  a  pore  sinner  wot  the  Lord  has  saaved." 

Clem  took  his  arm,  and  tried  to  nod  carelessly  to  various 
acquaintances  as  he  walked  off.  He  was  still  a  little  angry 
with  Bob,  but  his  first  thought  was  to  get  him  out  of  danger — 
whether  of  any  retaliation  or  of  his  own  starting  off  again. 

"Bob,  do  you  think  as  thur's  any  good  in  spikking  lik  that 
to  a  lot  of  foalkses  wot  doan't  care  a  mouldy  root?"  he  ven- 
tured diffidently,  when  they  were  some  distance  from  the  group 
which  still  remained  clotted,  though  no  longer  in  silence,  round 
the  place  where  his  brother  had  stood. 

Robert  made  a  clumsy,  desperate  gesture: 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  189 

"Wot  miin  I  do? — how  can  I  help  it?  If  the  Lord  says 
'Speak,'  can  I  hoald  my  tongue?" 

"But  need  you  spik  to  so  many?  Reckon  they're  just  an 
idle,  listening  lot;  they'll  never  care  or  do  naun.  I'm  not 
saying  aught  agaunst  your  having  a  ward  in  season,  but " 

"That  wur  how  I  started,  surelye — a  ward  in  season,  and 
it  led  to  many  wards.  \Mllard  of  Boarsney — not  the  oald 
man,  but  young  Alf  v/ho  is  even  as  Bethesda  and  Chorazin — ■ 
asked  me  to  come  and  have  a  drink.  And  I  toald  him  as  I'd 
a-done  wud  the  devil's  poison,  as  he  shud  ought  to  know. 
And  sinst  he  asked  me  why,  I  toald  him  the  story  of  my 
Salvation.  And  whiles  I  wur  a-telling,  others  came  raound  me 
and  start  listening,  and  I  wur  all  fur  shutting  up,  but  the 
Lord  said,  'You  spik  and  tell  of  all  I've  a-done  fur  you,  and 
1  will  give  you  a  mouth  and  wisdom.'  So  I  spuck,  and  the 
Scripture  was  on  my  tongue.  And  then  I  saw  'em  all  as 
sheep  having  no  shepherd,  and  my  heart  yearned  upon  them, 
even  upon  young  Alf  Willard  who'd  started  it  all  by  his  mock, 
and  upon  Leslie  Cripps  who's  never  paid  fur  them  roots  he 
had  off  me,  and  never  will,  surelye,  sinst  he  knows  as  I 
woan't  take  the  law  of  him.  Howsumdever,  he's  a  sheep  having 
no  shepherd,  and  I'm  sorry  fur  him  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart." 

Clem  said  nothing,  for  Bob  seemed  acutely  distressed;  he 
went  with  his  chin  sunk  forward,  and  in  his  eyes  there  was 
an  angry,  tender  yearning,  which  made  his  brother  feel  almost 
shy.    So  they  walked  up  High  Tilt  Street  in  silence. 

§4 

Needless  to  say,  the  episode  created  a  proper  stir,  and  not 
in  the  village  only,  for  the  news  of  it  was  carried  to  distant 
farms  by  yeomen  and  tenants  who  had  gone  to  market.  As 
in  the  general  matter  of  Bob's  conversion,  outrage  and  humour 
were  the  predominant  emotions.  That  he.  Bob  Fuller,  should 
dare  stand  up  and  preach  the  Gospel  in  the  village  that  he  had 
so  often  scandalized,  at  the  back  of  the  very  pub  where  he 
had  so  often  got  drunk  or  had  chucked  about  his  money  in 


190  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

debts  and  bets  to  buy  presents  for  Hannah  Iden,  that  he  should 
take  upon  himself  to  tell  other  men,  who  had  always  been 
respectable,  how  to  set  about  saving  their  souls — it  was  enough 
to  make  any  decent  fellow  sick. 

Others,  however,  found  it  the  funniest  thing  he  had  done 
yet.  The}^  would  never  forget  his  red  face  as  he  stood  there 
among  them,  how  he  had  flapped  and  floundered,  how  he  had 
made  a  fool  of  himself,  how  he  had  made  them  laugh — when 
once  he  had  gone  away  and  they  had  got  over  the  surprise 
of  it. 

There  was  also  a  small  number  which  had  been  impressed 
— Bob  had  not  spoken  so  badly,  he  had  meant  what  he  said, 
surelye.  Maybe  it  was  true  that  he  had  really  been  converted. 
It  was  certainly  wonderful  to  see  him  going  about  so  respect- 
able, with  his  clean  and  gentle  tongue.  Not  that  he  had  done 
it  for  very  long,  to  be  sure — it  v/asn't  six  months  yet  since 
he  had  been  found  drunk  in  the  ditch  on  Megrim's  Hill.  .  .  . 
Howsumdever  .  .  .  well,  wot  did  Mus'  Vine  of  the  Throws 
Chapel  think  of  it,  anyways? 

In  default  of  any  pronouncement  from  authority,  an 
enormous  amount  of  discussion  went  on  among  the  different 
parties  till  Bob  and  his  salvation  were  finally  submerged  in  an 
outbreak  of  foot-and-mouth  disease  at  Wadhurst.  In  time 
definite  opinions  began  to  be  associated  with  definite  public- 
houses,  and  there  was  something  in  the  nature  of  a  schism 
between  the  Royal  George  and  the  Woolpack,  the  former  be- 
ing talked  over  by  Pepper  of  Weights  to  the  doctrine  of  indig- 
nation, the  latter  under  the  guidance  of  Cox  of  Haiselman's 
vaguely  committing  itself  to  the  statement  that  "maybe  there 
mun  be  something  in  it."  The  more  ribald  spirits  leavened 
indiscriminately  the  lump  of  the  serious-minded,  and  those 
were  troublous  times  for  landlords  who  wished  to  keep  order 
and  solemnity  in  their  bars. 

Clem  naturally  heard  a  good  deal  of  the  gossip.  Jim,  in 
an  agony  of  shame,  forswore  public-houses  for  over  a  week, 
and,  anyhow,  people  would  not  have  discussed  the  matter 
before  him.  But  Clem  was  different — nobody  troubled  to 
Ci.'-rse  the  conversation  when  his  good-humoured,  freckled  face 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  191 

appeared;  indeed,  he  was  appealed  to  by  all  parties  to  "do 
summat  wud  Bob" — either  in  the  way  of  making  him  hold  his 
tongue  or  of  explaining  the  matter  further. 

"He'll  bring  himself  to  trouble  if  he  goes  in  such  ways," 
said  Pepper  of  Weights.  "You  mun  think  of  your  brother 
Jim  and  stick  by  him  fur  a  whiles.  You  always  go  sticking 
by  Bob,  whether  as  it's  heaven  or  hell  as  he's  bound  fur,  and  I 
mun  tell  you  here  as  we  woan't  taake  any  more  preaching 
from  a  chap  wot's  bin  a  byward  in  the  Parish  fur  looseness  this 
five  years.  So  it'll  be  fur  his  good  as  well  as  everyone  else's 
if  you  maake  him  hoald  his  tongue." 

"I  can't  do  naun  wud  Bob,  as  you  might  know,"  said  Clem 
disconsolately.  "And,  anyways,  I  can't  tell  wot  he  means  next. 
Maybe  he'll  never  preach  another  ward.  Reckon  he  just  got 
started  by  young  Willard  asking  him  a  question,  and  the  best 
way  to  maake  him  hoald  his  tongue  is  fur  you  all  to  let  him 
aloan." 

"But  there's  foalkses  about  as  ud  lik  to  hear  more,"  said 
Dunk  of  Shoyswell,  who  was  a  disciple  of  Cox.  "He  spoake 
but  ten  minnut,  and  it  wur  all  the  saame:  'Let  the  Lord  saave 
you  saame  as  He  saaved  me.'  Well,  we'd  lik  to  hear  more  wot 
he  did  to  be  saaved  and  wot  we  mun  do." 

"Bob  says  you  doan't  have  to  do  naun  to  be  saaved,"  said 
Clem.  "I  doan't  quite  maake  him  out  thur,  surelye.  How- 
sumdever,  it's  all  got  to  do  vmd  having  things  imputted  on 
you.  Bob's  got  good  brains,  and  he  goes  more  into  the  wark- 
ings  of  Salvation  maybe  than  us." 

On  the  whole,  however,  Clem  agreed  with  Pepper  rather 
than  Dunk,  and  was  desperately  anxious  that  nothing  should 
happen  to  "start  Bob  off  agaun."  For  about  a  week  it  looked 
as  if  his  anxiety  was  groundless.  Robert's  first  public  testi- 
mony, as  he  called  it,  had  not  been  quite  so  God-blessed  as  it 
might;  he  was  well  aware  of  the  indignation  and  suspicion  it 
had  aroused,  he  had  not  in  the  least  enjoyed  making  it,  and 
hoped  devoutly  in  himself — though  he  would  not  have  ac- 
knowledged the  same  to  anyone — that  the  Lord  would  not 
again  require  such  an  effort  of  him. 

But  at  the  end  of  the  week,  Clem  calling  with  Polly  at  Cam.- 


192  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

pany's  Hatch  to  see  the  baby,  was  met  by  an  indignant  and 
tear-stained  Mabel,  who  protested  that  it  wasn't  fair,  it  was 
too  bad,  and  that  the  old  chap  ought  to  be  stopped  from 
meddling— she'd  die  of  shame  ...  as  if  all  this  hadn't  been 
bad  enough.  .  .  . 

It  transpired  that  the  Reverend  Mr.  Beeman,  having  heard 
of  Robert's  testimony,  had  invited  him  to  speak  at  Goudhurst 
Chapel  the  following  Sunday  afternoon.  Being  Pope  of  Goud- 
hurst, he  could  answer  for  his  deacons,  and,  moreover,  he 
guaranteed — in  the  old-fashioned,  sloping  handwriting  of  the 
letter  Mabel  indignantly  flapped — that  the  preacher  would 
also  be  much  refreshed  in  his  own  soul. 

"I  ask  you,"  said  Mabel,  "I  ask  you.  .  .  ." 

It  was  all  she  could  say  for  some  time,  till  she  had  had 
another  good  cry.  She  annoyed  Clem  and  Polly  exceedingly, 
but  they  could  not  help  being  sorry  for  her.  It  certainly  ap- 
peared as  if  fate  had  tricked; her  into  marrying  Robert  under 
false  pretences. 

''He'll  be  no  better  than  a  minister  now  ...  to  think  that 
I  should  ever  marry  a  man  who  went  about  ranting  in  chapels 
...  it  isn't  fair,  I  tell  you.  And  he'll  make  such  a  fool  of 
himself,  too.  Why,  Bob  can't  speak  English,  to  start  with 
.  .  .  and  he  gets  in  such  a  mess  with  his  sentences 
.  .  .  and  him  excited  too  .  .  .  oh,  he'll  be  in  Hellinglye  yet!" 

"But,  Mabel  dear,"  soothed  Clem,  for  Robert's  sake,  "I 
reckon  this  is  better  than  spikking  anyhows  at  market.  If  he 
gits  a  taaste  fur  spikking  praaper  in  a  Church,  it'll  be  all 
to  the  good,  surelye.  Maybe  he'll  do  well,  and  maake  you 
proud  of  him." 

But  his  thoughts  were  not  so  courageous  as  his  words,  and 
when  Bob  came  in  that  evening  he  took  him  apart  and  tried 
to  reason  him  out  of  the  new  project. 

Bob  was  obstinate,  or,  in  his  own  language,  he  was  "led." 

"It's  middling  queer,  but  that  very  morning  at  breakfast, 
before  I  got  that  there  letter,  just  as  I  wur  drinking  my  second 
cup  o'  tea,  I  had  these  words  powerfully  impressed  on  my 
sciil,  'Behold  I  shall  send  thee  forth  unto  the  Gentiles.'  Then 
the  letter  caame,  and  I  sav/  the  Lord's  hand  plain.    Wot  mun 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  193 

I  do?  Maybe  He  wants  to  maake  an  instrument  of  His  pore 
worm.  Anj^vays,  I  mun  tell  foalkses  wat  He's  a-done  fur 
me,  whether  they  listen  or  whether  they  woan't,  and  I  reckon 
Mus'  Beeman  wudn't  have  asked  me  to  preach  in  his  chapel 
if  he  hadn't  thought  I'd  bring  a  blessing  wud  me." 

Clem  saw  that  Bob  had  been  touched  in  his  vanity.  Mr. 
Beeman's  letter  of  thankfulness  and  encouragement  had  re- 
moved his  doubts  as  to  the  success  of  his  former  venture.  He 
was  like  a  child  who  is  told  that  it  has  done  well  and  has  no 
self-criticism  to  make  it  doubt  the  verdict.  The  adverse  com- 
ments which  had  reached  his  ears  were  now  all  so  many 
utterances  of  Satan,  of  the  wicked  and  the  reprobate  who 
sickened  and  trembled  to  hear  the  pure  Gospel  preached. 
"Young  man,"  the  old  Pope  of  Goudhurst  had  written,  "I  look 
upon  you  nov/  as  a  chosen  vessel  of  the  word  of  God.  Maybe 
He  has  a  great  work  for  you  to  do  for  Him  in  His  poor,  dis- 
tressed family." 

§  5 

So  on  a  warm  March  Sunday,  when  the  hedges  were  brushed 
with  green  bloom,  and  the  willow  catkin  made  creamy  splashes 
in  the  brown  of  the  woods,  Robert  went  off  to  Goudhurst — 
on  foot,  since  he  must  not  ride  his  horse  on  the  Sabbath  day. 
He  wore  his  black  clothes,  and  they  made  him  very  hot,  but 
he  was  anxious  to  look  as  much  like  a  preacher  as  possible, 
which  was  difficult  with  his  brown  and  ruddy  skin  and  his 
sturdy,  ploughman's  frame. 

He  was  to  spend  the  night  with  Mr.  Beeman — it  was  the 
longest  parting  he  had  had  from  Mabel  since  their  marriage, 
and  he  wished  their  good-byes  had  been  more  affectionate, 
But  Mabel  was  still  sore  and  cross.  No  gentleness  would 
melt  her,  no  warnings  shake  her;  she  put  herself  in  painful 
opposition  to  the  Word.  Robert  had  a  terrible  feeling  that 
she  might  be  lost — indeed,  it  was  very  difficult  to  think  who, 
if  any,  of  his  family  circle  was  likely  to  be  saved;  they  were 
one  and  all  either  hostile  or  indifferent.  Robert's  own  safety 
seemed  a  doubtful  blessing  if  he  was  to  enjoy  it  alone,  or  in  the 
unrelieved  companionship  of  Mr.  Beeman.     But  at  the  roots 


194  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

of  his  heart  was  an  instinctive  faith  in  the  God  Who  had 
shown  him  mercy  in  the  field,  and  would  one  day  equally 
show  mercy  to  those  he  loved,  saving  them  in  their  own  de- 
spite. After  all,  if  Robert's  own  sins  had  been  unable  to 
send  him  to  hell,  his  mother's  worldliness  and  Mabel's  fro- 
wardness  and  Clem's  ignorant  content  might  prove  insufficient 
to  withstand  the  Everlasting  if  somewhat  Particular  mercy. 

It  took  him  nearly  five  hours  to  walk  to  Goudhurst.  He 
followed  the  high  road  as  far  as  Gill's  Green,  then  turned  into 
a  maze  of  little  creeping  lanes  by  Furnace  Farm.  He  was  in 
Kent  now,  among  the  high  hills  that  are  like  chequer  boards 
with  their  fallows  and  ploughs  and  woods.  The  lane  went 
twisting  down  to  the  Furnace  Stream,  and  then  up  again  by 
Tubslake  and  Three  Chimneys,  till  he  could  see  Goudhurst 
above  him  on  the  crest,  its  line  of  roofs  spiked  with  oast- 
houses  and  windmills. 

He  was  beginning  to  feel  tired,  for  he  had  done  all  the 
farm's  duty  before  he  started.  Moreover,  it  was  very  hot; 
his  boots  were  powdered  with  dust,  and  the  dust  had  fanned 
itself  over  his  broad  black  back.  He  took  off  his  hat,  and 
mopped  his  forehead  round  which  it  had  dug  a  trench  with 
its  hard  rim;  he  suddenly  felt  that  it  would  be  good  to  turn 
out  of  the  lane,  and  lie  down  on  the  earth-smelling  grass  of 
one  of  those  big,  quiet  fields,  just  where  the  shadow  of  the 
hedge  was  lacy  on  the  edge  of  the  sunshine  ...  to  smell  the 
earth,  and  feel  its  sweet,  living  strength  as  he  lay  on  it,  hold- 
ing him  up  like  the  Everlasting  Arms  .  .  .  while  round  him 
the  primrose  leaves  uncurled,  and  the  spotted  leaves  of  the 
field  orchid  broke  the  green  film  of  their  bract,  and  the  warm 
daisies  breathed  out  a  scent  that  was  the  caught  essence  of 
spring  heat  and  honey.  It  would  be  good  to  lie  there  and 
watch  the  meadow's  conversion,  to  see  spring  doing  for  the 
Goudhurst  fields  what  Free  Grace  had  done  for  Robert  Fuller. 
...  He  sternly  pulled  up  his  thoughts,  the  heat  was  making 
him  dream;  and  lately  he  had  detected  in  himself  a  growing 
libertinism  of  thought,  which  was  continually  throwing  up 
images  such  as  this.  It  was  the  devil,  trying,  in  mind  as  in 
body,  to  tempt  him  out  of  the  narrow  lane  into  the  wide 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  193 

meadow.  He  distrusted  a  yearning  for  the  beauty  of  the 
fields  which  had  lately  grown  up  in  him.  Of  old  times  he 
used  never  to  think  twice  about  the  country  and  the  fields 
and  the  earth,  but  since  his  conversion  he  had  had  several 
temptations  of  this  kind,  temptations  to  turn  to  mere  beauty, 
which  made  him  all  the  more  distrust  them  as  the  devil's  game, 
striving  to  turn  him  from  the  Creator  to  the  creature,  from 
human,  immortal  souls  to  the  earth  which  shall  wax  old  as  doth 
a  garm.ent  and  as  a  vesture  shall  be  folded  away  and  changed. 

Thus  wrestling  with  himself  he  came  to  Goudhurst,  tired 
of  body  and  vexed  of  mind,  and  in  no  very  good  mood  for 
the  afternoon's  doings.  Perhaps  this  was  partly  responsible 
for  his  want  of  success.  Anyhow,  his  preaching  was  a  failure. 
V^Tien  he  found  himself  in  the  stuffy,  bare  little  chapel,  v/ith 
the  big  brown  blinds  pulled  down  over  the  windov/s  to  keep 
out  the  sun,  and  a  blue-bottle  droning  through  the  scrapings 
and  shufaings  and  Amens  of  the  congregation,  his  tongue 
Feemed  to  swell  big  and  clumsy  in  his  mouth  and  at  the  same 
time  his  heart  to  parch  and  shrivel  in  his  breast.  He  felt 
as  if  the  chief  wonder  of  his  message  had  been  left  outside, 
and  tried  in  vain,  during  Mr.  Beeman's  opening  prayers,  to 
drag  it  indoors — he  could  not  relate  it  to  anything  inside.  .  .  . 
On  the  contrary,  it  seemed  to  call  him  out,  to  stand  in  the 
doorway  just  where  it  swung  ajar  and  a  little  breeze  crept  in, 
and  call  him  out  to  the  fields  and  the  young  w^oods  which 
were  saved  by  the  mercies  of  spring.  He  gripped  his  hands 
together  till  the  knuckles  stood  white  out  of  the  coarse,  earth- 
grained  brown.  ...  It  was  hard  to  be  tempted  now,  just 
when  he  so  wanted  to  show  the  Lord's  power.  .  .  .  Oh,  doubt- 
less the  Lord  had  some  good  purpose  in  allowing  him  thus 
to  be  tempted  and  humbled. 

When  he  stood  up  to  speak,  his  uneasiness  grew.  He  found 
his  task  far  more  painful  than  that  of  haranguing  a  score  of 
farmers  at  High  Tilt  market.  These  few  old  men,  with  one 
cr  two  stern  young  ones,  these  rough-hewn,  suppressed  women 
and  girls,  were  more  like  a  jury  than  a  congregation.  Also 
their  interruptions  confused  him.  An  old  man  close  under 
the  pulpit  ejaculated  "Glory  be  to  God"  at  regular  intervals, 


196  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

irrespective  of  anything  Bob  was  saying;  while  there  were 
occasional  and  more  or  less  appropriate  mutterings  of  Amen. 
Robert  found  himself  unable  to  think  of  any  of  these  people 
as  sheep  having  no  shepherd;  perhaps  the  hard  breathing  of 
their  shepherd  and  Pope  at  his  elbow  prevented  this.  Any- 
how, he  was  unconvincing,  stuttering  and  stale;  all  the  time 
he  was  thinking  of  himself  and  not  of  them,  which  made  him 
painfully  aware  of  his  own  shortcomings  and  their  lack  of 
appreciation.  Also,  he  spoke  only  for  fifteen  minutes,  which 
in  itself  would  have  damned  him. 

When  the  ordeal  was  over,  and,  after  a  closing  hymn,  he 
had  gone  back  to  Beeman's  house,  he  braced  himself  for 
trouble.  He  felt  sure  that  the  old  man  would  be  disappointed, 
even  reproachful;  he  might  think  that  Robert's  failure  was 
due  to  lack  of  preparation,  or — since  preparation  was  usually 
a  secondary  matter  with  those  who  trusted  in  the  Spirit — 
to  lack  of  Grace.  Mr.  Beeman  had  certainly  expected  more 
edification;  he  had  not  failed  to  point  out  to  the  Lord  that 
in  this  converted  sinner,  once  the  scandal  of  three  parishes 
and  now  their  glory,  He  had  an  opportunit}^  of  an  effective 
mouthpiece  that  ought  never  to  be  missed.  Hov/ever,  though 
he  was  continually  reminding  his  Creator  of  His  opportunities, 
he  took  no  offence  when  He  refused  to  profit  by  his  assistance. 
"It  is  the  Lord,  and  He  'as  done  whatsoever  seemeth  best 
to  Him,"  he  would  remark,  and  feel  rather  magnanimous. 
Neither  was  he  less  magnanimous  towards  Robert  than  towards 
the  Lord: 

"Reckon  you  did  your  best,  dear  friend,  and  it  wasn't  your 
fault  that  you  wasn't  given  utterance." 

"I  tried  to  do  the  saum  as  I  did  at  the  market,  surelye — 
just  tell  foalkses  wot  His  Mercy  has  done  fur  me." 

Mr.  Beeman  lifted  the  teapot  so  solemnly  that  Robert  found 
it  difficult  to  dissociate  it  from  his  words. 

"What  people  want,  my  friend,  is  a  savoury  discourse,  in 
which  the  general  precepts  and  tenets  of  salvation  are  gathered 
together  under  several  heads  and  applied  as  honey  to  their 
souls.  This  afternoon  you  were  addressing  saints,  so  there 
was  no  need  for  you  to  enlarge  on  the  terrors  of  hell,  seeing 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  197 

that  all  whom  you  saw  had  crossed  the  line  and  were  bound 
for  their  certain  'ope  in  Zion.  I  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord 
that  there  is  not  a  member  of  my  congregation  over  fourteen 
who  isn't  saved.  There  are  many  ungodly  and  sinners  in  the 
town  .  .  .  other  sheep  'ave  I  who  are  not  of  this  fold,  but  of 
the  lot  you  saw  every  one  of  them  'as  found  grace." 

Pvobert  felt  suitably  abashed. 

"Reckoned  they  doan't  think  much  of  me." 

''They  take  my  word,  of  course,  that  you  are  converted. 
But  one  or  two,  who  spoke  to  me  after  the  meeting,  have  fears 
as  to  your  doctrine.  I  mention  no  names,  but  one  devout 
soul  smelt  Antinomianism  in  your  discourse  to-day,  and  others 
grievously  suspect  Wellerism  and  High  Haldenism,  while  one 
— I'm  sure  the  accusation  is  quite  unfounded,  and  merely 
mention  it  to  warn  you — accused  you  of  being  a  Gardnerite," 

Poor  Robert's  eyes  grew  round  with  horror — he  had  no 
notion  what  these  heresies  were,  and  felt  vaguely  that  he  was 
committed  to  every  one. 

"Some  also,"  continued  ]\Ir.  Beeman,  "complained  of  your 
grammar.  I  myself  noticed  that  you  used  one  or  two  ex- 
pressions that  are  generally  affected  by  the  vulgar.  If  I  were 
you  I  should  make  it  a  matter  of  prayer." 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Robert  humbly. 

He  felt  utterly  abashed,  and  when  tea  was  over  he  made 
some  stumbling  excuses,  and  said  he  must  start  for  home  at 
once.  He  could  not  face  the  prospect  of  a  night  under  that 
roof  with  the  woe  of  evening  chapel  and  the  solemn  offices  of 
supper  and  breakfast — those  rites  with  which  the  Pope  of 
Goudhurst  satisfied  his  suppressed  ceremonial  instincts,  putting 
into  his  meals  what  his  convictions  forbade  him  to  put  into 
his  worship. 

§  6 

Robert  set  out  sadly  in  the  cool  of  the  day.  The  sunshine 
v/as  aslant,  and  seemed  to  move  in  great  solemn  strokes  of 
light  over  the  hills  of  Goudhurst  and  Horsmonden.  The  val- 
leys were  cups  of  coolness,  with  a  brush  of  dew  on  the  grass, 


198  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

and  here  and  there  the  brown  woods  were  lit  up  with  kindling 
gold.  On  the  high,  light-swamped  meadows  the  cows  pastured 
in  the  rake  of  the  sunset,  while  the  breeze,  which  was  not  so 
much  a  breeze  as  a  pulse  on  the  air,  brought  the  sound  of 
the  bells  from  steeples  of  "the  Crown  of  England"  across  the 
hills. 

His  strapping  frame  had  quite  recovered  from  the  morn- 
ing's fatigue,  but  none  the  less  he  walked  wearily,  for  his  mind 
dragged.  His  naive  elation  in  his  call  to  service  had  dropped 
into  a  black  and  bound  depression.  He  sav\r  himself  definitely- 
rejected — not  as  a  soul,  nothing  could  shake  his  assurance  of 
that — but  as  a  servant.  He  told  himself  that  for  his  sins  the 
opportunity  was  denied;  he  was  to  be  treated  like  David, 
who  was  not  allowed  to^build  the  temple  because  he  was  a 
Man  of  Blood.  The  privilege  had  entailed  on  Solomon,  whom 
Bob  could  never  consider  a  good  substitute  for  the  eager  and 
loving,  if  bloodstained  David— perhaps  because  he  could  not 
dissociate  him  in  his  mind  from  the  Old  Firm  of  Solomon 
Solomons  which  he  had  encountered  in  all  its  glory  at  every 
race-meeting  of  his  unsanctified  days,  with  a  diamond  ring 
on  its  finger  and  a  diamond  pin  in  its  tie,  and  unfailing  wis- 
dom wherewith  to  get  the  better  of  uninstructed  Gentiles. 
It  was  painful  to  think  that  Solomon  Solomons  might  be 
allowed  to  preach  the  Gospel  while  Robert  Fuller  was  not, 
though  Bob  now  humbly  acknowledged  himself  as  a  man  of 
blood.  Had  he  not  broken  a  front  tooth  for  Hoad  of  Linldiill 
scarcely  six  months  ago? — and  though  Darius  Ripley  was 
only  a  potential  Uriah,  certainly  Hannah  had  been  a  very 
definite  Bathsheba. 

He  spent  five  miles  in  "applying"  the  story  of  David  to 
himself,  and  had  ended  by  renouncing  his. pretensions  in  favour 
of  young  Nat,  whose  place  in  the  scheme  he  now  saw  more 
clearly,  when  he  came  to  the  high  road  again  by  Gills  Green. 
The  sun  had  dipped  behind  the  wooded  hills  of  Twissendcn, 
and  the  sky  was  a  soft  grey,  blurred  in  the  west  vv^ith  rose, 
and  pricked  here  and  there  with  a  star.  The  grey  of  the  sky, 
with  its  flushing  freak  of  light,  seemed  to  wash  over  the  fields 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  J  99 

• — all  colours  were  wiped  out,  and  the  roofs  and  barns  of 
Tanyard  Farm  merged  into  the  dimness  of  the  meadows  and 
the  huddled  trees. 

Robert  became  aware  of  a  man  before  him  on  the  road — 
a  dark  figure  stealing  shadowless  ahead.  He  drew  even  with 
him,  and  the  man  said  "Good  night." 

"Good  night,"  said  Bob. 

"It's  a  fine  night,"  said  the  man. 

"Yes,  middling  fine." 

"That's  good  for  me,  since  I'm  sleeping  out  in  it." 

"Whur  are  you  bound?" 

"I'll  be  fetching  up  at  Battle  Union  some  time  to-morrow 
— do  a  bit  of  stone-breaking  for  some  skilly  and  a  bed.  That's 
how  I  go — padding  the  hoof  from  Union  to  Union,  with  a 
doss  in  the  fields  now  and  then  if  it's  warm.  I'm  sloping 
along  Newhaven  way — thought  maybe  there'd  be  a  bit  of 
work  for  me  at  the  dock." 

The  dim  light  was  just  enough  to  show  him  ragged  and 
imshaved — his  clothes  gave  out  a  rank  odour  of  stale  beer. 

"Got  a  fag  on  you.  Mister?"  he  asked  after  a  pause. 

"No — I  doan't  smoke." 

"WTioo!" 

"I  gave  up  all  them  sinful,  worldly  things  when  the  Lord 
changed  my  heart,"  said  Robert,  gulping  the  words  out  with 
an  effort,  as  part  of  his  obligation  to  testify  in  season  and  out 
of  season.  He  expected  ribaldry,  but  the  tramp  heard  him 
with  deference. 

"I  had  a  brother  got  converted  once,"  he  said,  "up  at  Hud- 
dersfield,  and  really  it  was  beautiful  to  see  him  keeping  off 
the  drink  for  as  long  as  it  lasted." 

"It  cudn't  have  bin  a  true  conversion,  or  it  ud  have  lasted 
fur  ever." 

"Well,  my  brother  didn't  know  that.  He's  got  converted 
twice  since,  once  by  the  Salvationists  and  once  by  a  sort  of 
monk — the  first  time  the  Wesleyans  did  it.  He's  a  kind  as 
converts  easily,  you  might  say.  But  then  we  were  a  religious 
family — when  I  was  a  little  shaver  I  used  to  go  to  a  Sunday 


200  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

school  up  Bordesley  way,  and  I  could  tell  you  the  names  of  the 
books  in  the  Bible  all  off  in  a  string." 

"If  you'd  git  God's  ward  into  your  heart  as  well  as  into 
your  head  you'd  be  surprised  at  the  things  it  ud  do  fur  you." 

"Would  it  stop  me  wanting  drinks  as  well  as  wanting 
fags?" 

"I  never  touch  a  drop  now." 

"Um  .  ,  .  but  maybe  you  didn't  go  as  far  as  me.  I'm  a 
frightful  chap  for  the  stuff  when  I  can  get  it.  Sometimes 
I  feel  sorter  sorry,  for  it's  at  the  bottom  of  all  my  trouble. 
You  see,  I " 

The  tramp  told  Robert  his  story — a  common,  drab  sort 
of  story,  of  drink  and  the  kind  of  dissipation  that  goes  with 
drink  up  Bordesley  way.  It  was  not  unlike  Robert's  own 
story,  but  with  more  drink  and  less  woman  in  it,  and  the  end 
of  it  was  unlit  by  that  kindly  light  which  had  shone  upon 
Robert's  dark  page.  Bert  Slater  had  lost  one  job  after  an- 
other, and  now  had  been  for  a  year  on  the  roads.  He  was 
rather  down  on  his  luck,  he  said,  at  present,  but  the  warm 
weather  was  coming,  so  he  hoped  things  would  improve. 
Still,  it  all  made  him  feel  sorter  sorry.  .  .  . 

The  darkness  that  crept  down  on  them  over  the  fields  gave 
them  a  queer  sense  of  intimacy  and  closeness  as  they  trudged 
together  on  the  dim,  forsaken  road.  When  the  tramp  had 
finished  his  story  Robert  told  his  own,  from  his  boyhood  to 
the  day  of  Particular  Mercies — but  he  was  no  longer  hortatory 
and  admonitory,  he  was  just  one  man  talking  to  another.  In 
the  darkness  he  could  not  see  his  companion's  face,  scarcely 
his  figure — he  had  merely  a  general  impression  of  raggedness 
and  slouchiness  and  filthiness,  the  latter  chiefly  dependent 
on  his  sense  of  smell.  This  allowed  him  to  speak  differently 
from  the  way  he  would  probably  have  spoken  in  the  light,  and 
the  words  relieved  his  overcharged  soul  and  at  the  same  time 
seemed  to  interest  his  companion. 

"It  all  sounds  good,"  said  the  tramp.  "Makes  you  sorter 
feel  as  there's  Somebody  up  there.  If  only  I  could  keep  off 
f.he  bloody  wooze  .  .  .  but  it's  having  to  go  so  long  without 


GREEN  APPLE  HAR\  EST  201 

it  that  makes  me  so  bad  when  I  do  get  it.  I  sometimes  think 
that  if  I  could  count  on  my  quart  a  day  regular.  .  .  .  How- 
ever, I  used  to  get  that  easy  enough  when  I  was  with  Banks 
and  Son,  and  I  lost  that  job  'cos  I  was  always  too  blotto  to 
turn  up  on  Mondays.  .  .  ."  He  shook  his  head  perplexedly  at 
his  own  shortcomings. 

It  was  now  close  on  ten  o'clock,  and  the}'-  were  nearing 
Hawkhurst. 

"I  won't  go  into  the  village,"  said  the  tramp.  "I'll  doss 
out  under  the  next  haystack.    Where  are  you  going,  matey?" 

Robert  had  made  no  definite  plan.  He  had  vaguely  meant 
to  walk  on  home,  but  now  he  realized  that  if  he  went  straight 
to  Campany's  Hatch  he  would  arrive  in  another  hour,  and 
have  to  knock  up  Mabel  and  explain  his  quick  return. 

"I  suppose  you  wouldn't  stop  and  have  a  bit  of  supper  with 
me,"  said  the  tramp,  "and  then  we  could  finish  up  our  talk, 
and  I'd  find  you  a  warm  place  for  a  nap,  since  I  don't  sup- 
pose you're  used  to  sleeping  out." 

Robert  was  not,  but  his  robustness  did  not  shrink  from 
the  venture,  even  in  March.  The  brooding  Sabbath  of  the 
fields  called  to  all  in  him  that  was  tired  and  sore  and  dis- 
heartened, and  did  not  care  to  face  the  complaint  and  dis- 
couragement he  would  find  in  his  own  bed.  .  .  .  Also  he  felt 
drawn  towards  his  unknown,  half-seen  comrade.  Smarting 
from  the  mockery  of  the  froward  and  the  judgment  of  the 
Elect,  it  was  good  to  find  someone  who  neither  mocked  nor 
judged  nor  questioned — and  though  it  seemed  unkind  to  share 
Bert  Slater's  probably  insufficient  supper,  he  could  make  up 
for  it  by  treating  him  to  breakfast  at  the  Royal  Oak  to-morrow 
morning. 

So  a  few  minutes  later  Robert  and  the  tramp  found  them- 
selves under  the  comfortable  lee  of  a  haystack  in  a  field  near 
Cockshot  Farm.  Slater  had  in  his  pocket  two  slices  of  bread, 
which  time  and  friction  had  resolved  almost  into  two  hand- 
fuls  of  crumbs;  he  also  had  a  piece  of  lard  which  Robert 
could  quite  truthfully  say  he  did  not  want  and  leave  to  his. 
hungrier  comrade.     When  they  had  finished  eating  they  sat 


202  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

and  talked  to  each  other  in  long,  coiling  sentences  and  rumina- 
tive pauses,  till  the  rising  of  the  Waterbearer  over  Standen 
Street  made  Bert  Slater  declare  that  it  was  time  to  turn  in. 

Robert  said  a  prayer  for  them  both  before  they  lay  down 
in  the  hay,  and  was  comforted  by  the  fervour  of  the  tramp's 
Amen.  A  strange,  sweet  peace  had  dropped  on  him  at  last — 
he  had  forgotten  the  rubs  and  humiliations  of  his  Sabbath, 
they  seemed  somehow  to  have  merged  into  his  bodily  fatigue, 
which  v/as  slowly  throbbing  into  rest. 

But  though  he  rested  in  body  and  mind  he  did  not  sleep 
till  it  was  nearly  dawn.  The  night  seemed  awake  ...  it  was 
full  of  a  living  scent  of  earth  and  grass,  which  mixed  strangely 
with  the  musty  dry  scent  of  the  hay.  There  was  a  continual 
flutter  and  whisper  in  the  hedge,  queer  muffled  sounds  came 
from  the  next  field  .  .  .  later  he  knew  that  it  was  the  sheep 
munching  .  .  .  above  him  in  the  black  sky  the  stars  hung 
like  lamps  of  fire,  seeming  wonderfully  close  and  low.  He 
watched  the  Plough  slowly  turning  over  Delmonden,  and  the 
sky  seemed  full  of  the  same  peace  as  the  fields,  and  the  same 
sense  of  waking.  .  .  . 

He  slept  just  when  the  rich  blue  of  the  darkness  was  turn- 
ing grey,  and  when  he  woke  the  sunrise  was  darting  through 
the  palings  of  the  lane,  falling  on  his  closed  eyes  and  open 
mouth,  so  that  he  tossed  himself  awake  and  sat  up  with  his 
hair  full  of  hay.  Slater  was  up  and  performing  a  toilet  scarcely 
less  elementary  than  that  of  a  sheep.  He  was  grateful  for 
Robert's  suggestion  that  he  should  breakfast  with  him  at  the 
inn,  but  he  sorrowfully  declined  it. 

"It's  the  smell  of  them  pubs  ...  the  very  sawdust  on  the 
floor.  .  .  .  Oh,  I'd  have  my  nose  in  a  mug  before  you  could 
stop  me.  Heigho!  You'd  better  buy  me  some  bread  and 
cheese,  matey,  and  start  me  off  with  that.  .  .  .  No,  don't 
give  me  any  money — it  ain't  safe.  I've  been  thinking  a  bloody 
lot  last  night  .  .  .  you've  made  me  think  with  all  the  things 
you've  told  me  .  .  .  good  things  they  were  .  .  .  and  I've 
thought  this,  that  if  only  I  could  keep  off  the  wooze  may  be 
I  could  live  decent  and  get  a  job  again,  for  as  I've  told  you 
I  come  of  a  religious  family,  and  sometimes  it  hurts  me  when 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  203 

I  pass  a  church  and  hear  all  the  people  singing.  .  .  .  I've  half 
a  mind  to  make  a  try  and  see  what  I  can  do." 

"You  might  start  and  taake  the  pledge,"  suggested  Robert. 

"Have  you  taken  it?" 

"Only  to  my  God." 

"That  wouldn't  be  much  use  to  me.  .  .  .  But  look  here, 
I'll  take  it  to  you  if  you  like.  I'll  make  a  promise  to  you  not 
to  touch  any  strong  drink  or  liquor  for  a  month — I  dursn't 
make  it  longer,  but  if  I  can  keep  off  it  for  a  month  it'll  be 
something." 

It  suddenly  occurred  to  Robert  that  the  pledge  was  one  of 
the  Dead  Works  of  the  Leggal  Conscience,  but  poor  Slater 
was  so  eager,  and  looked  so  desperate  an  object  in  the  clear, 
stripping  daylight,  that  he  felt  unable  to  refuse  him.  After  all, 
he  was  still  outside  the  Covenant  of  Grace,  still  under  the 
Law,  so  perhaps  it  was  right  that  the  law  should  be  his  school- 
master, as  Scripture  said. 

The  tramp  felt  that  his  undertaking  would  be  more  binding 
in  writing,  and  there  was  some  difficulty  about  paper  and 
pencil;  but  in  the  end  Robert  found  the  stump  of  a  pencil 
in  one  of  his  pockets,  and  offered  the  fly-leaf  of  his  Bible 
for  the  entry. 

With  the  licked  head  of  the  pencil  and  much  hard  breathing 
it  was  written:  "I,  Albert  Slater,  have  taken  the  pledge  not 
to  drink  any  strong  drink  or  liquor  for  one  month  from  to- 
day, God  helping  me,"  and  was  signed  "Albert  Slater"  and 
"Robert  Fuller." 

Robert  put  the  Bible  back  into  his  pocket  and  went  with 
his  disciple  into  the  village,  where  he  bought  him  some  bread 
and  cheese  and  a  bag  of  bull's-eyes,  having  heard  that  the 
latter  were  a  useful  antidote  to  the  craving.  They  parted  at 
the  throws  beyond  High  Wigsell,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  either 
of  them  to  make  any  plans  for  meeting  again. 

§  7 

It  was  rather  awkward  that  the  spirit  of  truth  forbade  any 
temporizing  with  Mabel  when  she  asked  for  an  account  of 


204  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

his  day,  and  what  had  brought  him  back  so  early.  "I  gather 
you  just  made  a  fool  of  yourself,"  she  said  unkindly,  "and 
perhaps  this'll  teach  you  to  live  like  the  gentleman  farmer 
you  are  instead  of  the  minister  of  religion  you're  not." 

When  she  heard  about  the  episode  of  the  tramp  her  indig- 
nation fairly  scorched  him. 

"You  mean  to  tell  me  you  slept  out  with  a  common  tramp 
...  to  think  that  my  husband  should  ever  do  such  a  thing! 
.  .  .  Oh,  I'm  ashamed  of  you — ^you  can't  help  going  with  the 
dirt." 

Robert  heard  her  abjectly.  He  shrivelled  in  the  flame  of 
her  words.  Something  was  struggling  at  the  back  of  his  mind, 
urging  him  to  seize  and  shake  her,  put  things  straight  between 
them  once  more,  show  her  his  manhood  and  the  shame  of 
her  shrewishness,  but  he  thrust  it  away,  feeling  that  it  be- 
longed to  the  godless  past;  he  fled  from  it  into  utter  abjection, 
for  in  no  intermediate  state  could  he  be  safe,  though  he  knew 
that  she  despised  him  for  his  meekness. 

He  turned  back  to  the  duties  of  the  farm,  hoping  a  little 
that  he  would  not  again  be  called  upon  to  leave  them  for  the 
adventures  of  the  Gospel.  After  all,  since  he  was  so  stupid 
he  could  lead  a  life  of  prayer  at  home  .  .  .  and  perhaps  he 
would  end  by  changing  Mabel's  heart,  and  Clem's,  and  Polly's 
and  his  mother's — somehow  Mary  and  Jim  had  dropped  out 
of  the  scheme  of  salvation. 

But  Robert  was  not  to  be  left  in  peace.  A  few  days  later 
he  had  a  long  letter  from  Mr.  Beeman,  urging  him  not  to 
be  disheartened  b}'^  the  seeming  failure  of  his  first  attempt, 
but  to  wrestle  with  the  Lord,  who  it  appeared  was  anxious 
that  he  should  preach  the  Gospel  while  at  the  same  time 
taking  every  opportunity  to  thwart  and  discourage  him.  "It 
is  the  debt  you  owe  Him  for  the  mercies  He  has  shown  you. 
Blessed  be  His  Holy  Name." 

Those  were  the  words  that  compelled  Robert — ^he  could  not 
resist  his  own  gratitude.  Though  he  certainly  now  had  cares 
a-plenty,  nothing  could  make  his  life  less  than  immortal 
diamond.  The  past — even  the  past  of  his  happiest  tim.es  with 
Hannah— was  nothing  but  darkness  compared  even  with  these 


GREEN  APPLE  HAR\TST  205 

present  times  of  loneliness  and  disappointment  afield,  of  dis- 
agreement and  estrangement  at  home.  Every  morning,  when 
he  knelt  down  to  pray  at  the  bedside,  he  knew  that  he  had 
something  for  the  lack  of  which  all  his  former  life  now  seemed 
drab  and  worthless,  and  which,  if  he  were  to  lose  it,  nothing — 
not  the  most  perfect  human  love  in  his  home,  not  even  the 
love  of  Hannah  restored — could  ever  make  good  to  him. 

So  he  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  refuse  to  proclaim 
the  mercy  that  had  been  shown  him,  especially  when  the  sum- 
mons came  from  Mr.  Beeman,  who  had  been  so  kind  to  him, 
and  was  incidentally  his  Confessor,  and  Pope,  and  Infallible 
Church.  The  minister  offered  to  instruct  Robert  in  sound 
doctrine,  so  that  he  should  not  again  stagger  the  faithful  with 
leanings  towards  Gardnerism,  or  High  Haldenism,  or  any 
other  enemy  of  true  Calvinism.  Robert  was  not  a  good  sub- 
ject for  instruction.  His  rather  literal  mind  proved  a  leaky 
craft  in  the  toppling  seas  of  Whitefield  atid  Calvin;  his  in- 
telligence nearly  foundered  among  the  waves  of  justification 
and  imputation.  But  he  managed  to  keep  afloat  with  the 
aid  of  the  text  in  which  all  Particular  doctrine  lies  coiled 
up  like  a  rope:  "Whom  he  did  foreknow  he  also  did  pre- 
destinate, whom  he  did  predestinate  them  he  also  called,  and 
whom  he  called  them  he  also  justified,  and  whom  he  justified 
them  he  also  glorified." 

This  text  was  found  acceptable  by  the  congregation  scat- 
tered among  the  Rother  villages  of  Sussex  and  the  'dens  of 
Kent.  Robert  preached  on  it  in  the  Particular  Baptist  chapel 
at  Horsmonden,  and  was  accepted  with  the  text.  He  could 
point  to  himself  as  foreknown,  predestinated,  called,  justified, 
and  glorified,  and  with  his  gratitude  seemed  to  surge  up  a  new 
confidence,  that  caused  his  words  to  flow,  instead  of  dripping 
slowly  over  his  parched  tongue.  Mr.  Beeman  was  pleased 
with  his  disciple,  and  praised  him  at  the  Pontifical  High  Tea 
which  followed. 

"Now  you've  been  instructed,  you've  got  the  'ang  of  the 
Gospel  better,  and  folks  can  listen  to  you  with  edification. 
It  gives  you  the  jumps  if  you  feel  the  preacher  ain't  sound. 
Not  that  I  'old  with  the  new  presumptious  ways  of  teaching 


2o6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Gospel  ministers  in  colleges  and  other  'aunts  of  learning.  If 
the  Lord  calls  3^ou,  He  will  not  fail  to  teach  you  what  you 
ought  to  know,  and  it's  taking  the  matter  out  of  His  hands 
to  go  and  learn  it  at  a  college." 

On  his  way  home  Robert  informally  repeated  his  sermon 
to  a  knot  of  women  and  little  girls  by  the  well  on  Light  Foot 
Green.  Though  his  chapel  experience  had  been  so  much 
happier  this  time,  he  still  could  not  get  rid  of  the  idea  that 
the  Elect  sat  as  a  jury,  and  felt  that  he  would  like  to  preach 
for  a  change  to  somebody  who  wasn't  saved.  The  women 
and  little  girls  were  obviously  not  saved,  or  they  would  have 
been  attending  some  place  of  worship  on  Sunday  evening, 
instead  of  gossiping  round  a  well.  As  he  began  to  speak 
their  mouths  dropped  open  and  remained  so  till  he  had  fin- 
ished addressing  them.  By  that  time  a  few  of  their  male 
belongings  had  come  out  of  the  neighbouring  public-house, 
and  the  close  was  animated  by  some  witticisms,  which  Robert 
perfidiously  found  more  welcome  than  the  Amens  and  Halle- 
lujahs of  the  justified. 

He  went  on,  wondering  if  he  had  done  any  good,  but  feel- 
ing that  at  last  he  had  preached  to  publicans  and  sinners. 

§8 

Robert's  new  life  had  now  entered  on  a  new  stage.  He  had 
become,  in  spite  of  himself,  a  preacher — not  a  regular  preacher, 
for  he  was  still  a  farmer  all  the  week,  and  did  not  add  the 
letters  G.M.  or  Gospel  Minister  when  he  signed  his  name, 
as  Mr.  Beeman  did;  nevertheless,  he  was  a  preacher,  who 
had  his  definite  sphere  of  labour  in  the  villages  round  Goud- 
hurst.  About  half  a  dozen  chapels  and  meeting-rooms  were 
"affiliated"  with  the  Goudhurst  chapel,  and  over  these  old 
Pope  Beeman  held  sway.  With  the  exception  of  High  Halden, 
where  a  lively  schism  existed,  his  power  was  absolute — he 
could  any  day  he  liked  order  the  regular  Minister  to  stand 
aside  and  admit  some  Chosen  Vessel  to  his  pulpit.  On  one 
Sunday  Robert  testified  before  the  Elect  at  Frittenden,  on 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  207 

another  at  Bethersden,  and  again  at  Biddenden  and  Boars 
Isle. 

Mr.  Beeman  always  accompanied  him,  and  on  the  way 
home,  or  at  tea  or  supper  afterwards,  would  give  him  the 
benefit  of  his  criticism.  Under  his  guidance  Robert's  address 
lost  much  of  its  first  na'i've  fervour,  he  acquired  little  hypocri- 
sies and  pomposities,  and  on  the  whole  he  was  approved  of  by 
the  Particular  congregations  in  South  West  Kent.  They  cavilled 
and  criticized,  but  they  decided  among  themselves  that  he  was 
no  doubt  a  God-blessed  young  man  and  knew  how  to  apply  the 
Word.  He  had  not  so  far  succeeded  in  learning  grammar, 
though  he  had  taken  Mr.  Beeman's  advice  and  made  it  a 
matter  of  prayer,  but  his  blunders  gave  a  pleasant  sense  of 
superiority  to  those  of  his  congregation  who  were  in  a  position 
to  notice  them.. 

When  his  regular  ministrations  were  over,  either  on  Sunday 
evening  or  Monday  morning,  he  would  go  home  by  some 
rambling  way — by  Harlakenden,  or  Mayshaves,  or  Kalsham 
Green,  or  Gablehook — and  address  stray  groups  on  village 
greens,  or  from  the  churchyard  steps,  or  outside  the  public- 
house.  Once  he  even  stood  in  the  doorway  of  a  forge  at 
Omenden,  and  while  the  iron  clinked  on  the  anvil  and  the 
bellows  roared,  told  the  smith  of  the  day  which  shall  burn  as 
a  furnace.  .  .  . 

Robert  loved  this  irregular  ministry,  as  he  could  never  love 
his  more  ordained  and  imposing  duties.  It  belonged  to  the 
casual  nights  he  spent  under  the  stars — soft  purple  nights 
of  June,  when  the  horns  of  the  yellow  moon  burned  above 
the  woods,  and  the  air  was  warm,  and  thick  with  the  smell 
of  hay.  He  associated  it  with  the  sweet,  straggling  sunlight 
of  late  afternoon  or  early  morning,  with  village  wells,  and 
cool  deserted  lanes;  and  his  heart  went  out  to  these  few  stray 
stolid  folk  as  it  never  went  out  to  the  chapel  congregations. 
He  made  no  wonderful  stir  among  them,  either  for  good  or 
evil.  The  inhabitants  of  West  Kent  are  not  an  excitable 
race,  and  Robert  was  not  stoned  at  the  cross-roads,  any  more 
than  he  was  thronged  by  repentant  sinners.     A  few  stray 


2o8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

witticisms  or  an  occasional  cup  of  tea  were  the  only  tokens 
that  divided  the  sheep  from  the  goats. 

But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  addressed  open  mouths 
rather  than  open  ears,  he  was  not  discouraged.  His  preaching 
was  a  relief  to  his  own  soul — overburdened  with  its  gratitude 
to  the  Precious  Blood.  He  felt  drawn  in  love  towards  these 
stolidly  straying  sheep,  and  enjoyed  the  occasional  tokens  of 
their  goodwill.  He  was  beginning  to  find  in  his  new  life 
more  and  more  of  self-expression,  more  and  more  of  relief 
from  the  anxiety  and  loneliness  and  care  of  his  home.  It  did 
not  occur  to  him  that  a  measure  of  his  happiness  was  due  to 
his  closer  association  with  the  fields,  to  a  growing  communion 
with  the  earth,  which  was  a  part  of  these  Sabbaths. 

The  rumour  of  him  spread,  of  course.  Those  who  listened 
to  him  in  stolid  silence,  found  their  tongues  fast  enough  after 
he  was  gone;  and  though  his  official  testimony  was  limited 
to  the  Beemanite  chapels  round  Goudhurst,  the  wild  growth 
of  it  straggled  as  far  as  High  Tilt  and  Campany's  Hatch. 

"Bob  said  at  Peening  Quarter  as  it  doan't  matter  wot  you 
do  so  long  as  you're  saaved."  ....  "Bob  said  at  Gablehook 
as  Salvation's  lik  a  cup  of  tea,  and  you've  naun  to  do  but 
take  it."  ....  "Bob  said  he  loved  Mus'  Pitcher  of  Ramstile 
lik  his  own  sheep."  .  .  .  "Bob  said  in  the  public  at  Heartsap 
as  they  wur  all  God's  poor  family."  ....  "Bob  said  at  Iden 
Wood  ....  Bob  said  at  Bugglesden  ....  Bod  said  at  the 
Brogues  .  .  .  ."  There  was  no  end  to  what  Bob  said,  it  ap- 
peared. 

People  were  growing  accustomed  to  him  in  his  new  righteous- 
ness. There  was  little  of  that  burning  indignation  which  had 
raged  when  memories  of  the  old  Bob  were  fresh  in  the  mind 
of  Bodiam  and  High  Tilt.  He  was  beginning  to  drop  out 
of  the  life  of  the  district.  On  Sundays  he  was  generally  away 
at  Goudhurst,  and  his  week-day  leisure  was  never  spent  in 
a  public-house;  so  his  contact  with  his  neighbours  was  limited 
to  the  day's  work,  and  Campany's  Hatch  had  now  few  enter- 
prises to  bring  its  owner  to  market. 

Indeed  the  farm  was  ill-served  by  the  maaster's  zeal  for 
souls.    Robert  had  engaged  a  boy  to  do  odd  jobs,  and  to  help 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  209 

Mabel  on  the  days  he  was  away  from  home.  But  these  con- 
tinued absences  from  a  one-man  holding  could  not  fail  to  be 
disastrous.  Mabel  was  town-born  and  unskilled,  and  also  had 
her  baby  and  housekeeping  to  look  after,  and  the  boy  was  not 
an  efficient  substitute  for  Robert  either  in  strength  or  ex- 
perience. 

''He'll  have  the  plaace  in  the  auction-market  soon,"  said 
Jim,  "leaving  it  lik  that,  sometimes  fur  six  days  in  the  month. 
I  call  it  wicked — valiant  liddle  bit  of  graound  as  it  is  .  .  . 
and  Powlard  and  me  set  him  up  thur,  thinking  as  he'd  maake 
a  good  thing  of  it." 

"He's  messed  his  hay  'cos  he  wouldn't  cart  on  Sunday," 
said  Mary;  "there's  no  sense  in  him  even  when  he's  at 
hoame." 

"Bob's  been  the  gurt  trouble  of  my  days — bad  or  good;  and 
now  as  he's  started  wud  this  new  nonsense " 

"You're  right  in  calling  it  nonsense,  and  it  aun't  seemly, 
nuther.  All  this  preaching's  no  better'n  being  sick;  he's  swal- 
lowed more  gospel  than  he  can  kip  down,  so  he  just  goes 
and  is  sick.  I  say  it  aun't  seemly,  and  I'm  sorry  fur  pore 
IMabel  who  has  to  put  up  wud  it  all." 

Mabel  was  sorry  for  herself.  She  hated  being  the  wife 
of  a  strolling  preacher,  she  hated  being  left  alone  every  other 
Saturday  night,  she  hated  seeing  the  farm  neglected.  She 
felt,  moreover,  that  her  friends  must  despise  her — married  to 
a  ranter,  a  travelling  Y.M.C.A.  WTiat  a  fate  to  have  over- 
taken Mabel  Powlard,  who  used  to  go  out  with  some  of  the 
smartest  boys  in  Bulverhythe.  Even  the  old  days,  when  she 
was  jealous  of  Hannah  and  Bob  spent  his  evenings  at  the  pub, 
had  been  better  than  these. 

She  sometimes  paid  him  out  for  his  week-end  absences  by 
going  away  herself  when  he  was  at  home.  Her  father  took 
her  part  against  him,  and  she  knew  that  she  could  always  go 
to  Bulverhythe  for  a  night  when  she  pleased.  Robert  so 
bitterly  felt  the  punishment  that  she  went  rather  often.  On 
these  occasions  she  either  left  the  baby  with  him  or  with  Polly 
and  Clem.  Robert  sometimes  felt  called  upon  to  rebuke  her 
for  being  an  unnatural  mother,  whereupon  she  would  retort 


210  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

by  calling  him  an  unnatural  husband.  ...  It  seemed  as  if 
the  Particular  Mercies  were  breaking  up  his  home. 

So  the  summer  dragged  through.  There  were  days  of  sweet- 
ness, of  tender,  yearning  contemplation;  and  there  were  days 
of  bitterness,  of  difficulty  and  jar  and  fret.  Sometimes,  too, 
Robert  would  begin  to  be  troubled  by  doubts — as  to  the  cer- 
tainty or  even  as  to  the  reality  of  his  new  experiences.  As 
the  blessedness  of  his  contemplative  moments  increased,  bring- 
ing with  it  a  fuller,  more  poignant  sense  of  union,  so  in  the 
intervals  between  them,  when  his  spirit  dropped  back  ex- 
hausted from  the  heights,  the  memory  became  more  dim,  the 
certainty  less  glaring,  the  heights  so  remote  that  they  seemed 
almost  imaginary.  .  .  . 

Sitting  in  the  sunshine  with  his  baby  in  his  arms,  lying 
awake  in  the  tremulous  dawn  beside  his  wife,  or  working  for 
them  both  in  the  warmth  and  peace  of  the  August  fields,  he 
fought  sorrowfully  to  win  back  those  moments  that  had 
brushed  him  with  their  glory  as  the  wing  of  a  passing  bird. 
...  He  would  tremblingly  revise  the  past  and  see  himself 
unworthy,  he  would  try  to  count  the  souls  he  had  saved  and 
find  not  one;  all  the  toil  of  his  body,  all  the  travail  of  his 
soul,  would  seem  mere  fruitless  effort  in  a  world  which  was 
beautiful  only  in  the  occasional  reflection  of  a  far-off  God, 
as  a  pool  catches  the  sun  for  a  moment  and  then  remains  day- 
long scummed  and  cold.  Sometimes  a  kind  of  despair  would 
seize  him  and  urge  him  to  yield,  to  go  back  to  the  certain 
pleasures  of  a  pipe  and  a  public-house  and  a  placated  Mabel, 
to  give  up  this  quest  of  what  might  be  only  a  dream.  .  .  . 
But  then  swiftly  he  would  either  remember  himself  in  the 
days  when  he  had  those  certain  pleasures,  and  yet  was  in  the 
shadow  of  death,  and  thrill  once  more  with  gratitude  to  the 
goodness  that  had  called  him  into  light;  or  else  the  doubt  would 
pass  into  a  sudden  passionate  certainty,  and  the  world  and 
all  in  it  would  fall  away,  leaving  him  alone  with  his  love. 

§  9 
At  the  beginning  of  September  Robert  had  a  Call  to  Shadox- 
hurst,  a  village  some  miles  east  of  Bethersden,  and  outside 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  211 

the  Beemanite  obedience.  Hitherto  his  ministry  had  been 
straitly  confined  to  those  villages  where  his  protecter  held 
sway,  but  it  would  seem  that  his  story  had  travelled  beyond 
the  pale  of  his  labours,  and  that  they  of  Shadoxhurst  were 
at  least  anxious  to  see  how  he  looked.  Mr.  Beeman  urged 
him  to  accept  the  call;  he  saw  himself  treading  into  Shadox- 
hurst on  Robert's  heels.  His  appeal  was  reinforced  by  Scrip- 
ture, for  Bob,  on  consulting  his  Bible,  "turned  up"  the  text: 
"The  land  of  Zebulon,  and  the  land  of  Naphthalim,  by  the 
way  of  the  sea,  beyond  Jordan,  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles;  the 
people  which  sat  in  darkness  saw  great  light;  and  to  them 
which  sat  in  the  region  and  shadow  of  death  light  is  sprung 
up."  This  could  be  looked  upon  as  nothing  less  than  a 
Divine  command  to  go  to  Shadoxhurst,  and  he  wrote  his  ac- 
ceptance to  the  deacons. 

The  journey  would  be  a  longer  one  than  the  others,  and 
though  he  could  have  gone  by  train  on  Saturday  night  as  far 
as  Frittenden  Road,  he  decided  that  here  was  a  wider  oppor- 
tunity for  his  irregular  testifying  than  any  he  had  yet  had, 
and  decided  to  go  on  foot,  starting  in  the  morning.  His  way 
would  run  through  some  of  the  old  ground,  by  Tubslake  and 
Gills  Green,  and  then  through  Benenden  into  strange  lands — 
Starvenden  and  Pale  Mill,  Little  Wad  and  Witters  Oak, 
where  the  people  who  sat  in  darkness  had  never  heard  how 
Free  Grace  had  found  Bob  Fuller  in  the  field  outside  Mopesden 
Wood. 

Mabel  was  very  angry  when  she  heard  of  this  decision — 
so  angry  that  she  refused  to  help  him  with  his  spelling  in  his 
letter  to  the  deacons. 

"I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing — leaving  the  farm  for  three 
whole  days,  as  if  it  wasn't  bad  enough  leaving  it  for  one.  It's 
nice  for  me,  having  to  do  all  the  work  on  Sunday." 

"Thur's.  unaccountable  liddle  to  do  these  times,  kiddie.  I'll 
have  had  all  the  apples  picked  by  then,  and  thur'll  be  naun 
but  the  chicken  to  see  to,  and  you've  got  Pod^am  fur  that." 

"He's  a  fine  lot  of  use,  I  must  say.  The  chicken,  or  even 
you,  have  got  more  sense  than  him.  I  have  to  go  tearing 
after  him  all  day.  .  .  .  And  there's  baby  too.  ...  I  call  it  a 


212  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

shame,  Robert,  I  really  do.  If  you  must  go  to  Shadoxhurst, 
why  can't  you  go  by  train  instead  of  mooning  about  the  coun- 
try on  foot?" 

"Mabel,  I'm  telling  you,  dear,  as  my  gurtest  joy  aun't 
to  preach  in  the  chapel,  whur  seemingly  everyone  knows  the 
Gospel  better'n  I  do;  it's  to  preach  it  in  the  highways  and 
hedges,  as  the  Scripture  says,  and  compel  them  to  come  in. 
Thur's  men  as  have  never  heard  of  the  Free  Grace,  'and  I 
want  summat  tedious  to  maake  them  know  wot  I  know,  so's 
they  can  be  wot  I  am." 

"Then  I'm  sorry  for  their  wives." 

He  looked  at  her  without  speaking,  and  something  in  his 
goodly,  ruddy  face,  with  the  blue  eyes  full  of  trouble,  ap- 
pealed to  a  side  of  her  that  was  dying  fast.  Her  heart  began 
to  beat  quickly,  and  going  up  to  him  she  put  her  arms  round 
his  neck,   dragging  him  close.  .  .  . 

"Bob,  come  off  it.  .  .  .  Why  must  this  be  between  us?  We 
used  to  be  happy  together  once.  If  you've  simply  got  to  be 
religious,  can't  you  be  it  without  all  this  fuss  and  trouble? 
Sometimes  I  feel  as  if  I  couldn't  stick  it  any  longer  .  .  .  you 
going  away  like  this  .  .  .  and  loving  so  many  things  better 
than  me.  .  .  ." 

"I  don't,  kiddie,"  he  murmured  tenderly;  "I  just  love  you 
as  I  always  dud,  but  when  the  Lord  calls  me  I  mun  go,  and 
whur  He  calls  me  I  mun  go  .  .  .  fur  He's  bin  so  good  to  me, 
Mabel — gooder  nor  you  can  think." 

"I  don't  see  any  goodness  in  taking  3^ou  away  from  your 
wife,  and  making  a  fool  of  you,  traipsing  about  the  country 
.  .  .  and  the  place  ull  fall  to  pieces,  you  going  off  like  this, 
and  you  lost  the  best  part  of  your  hay  because  you  said  God's 
Word  wouldn't  let  you  cart  on  Sunday.  .  .  .  And  never  the 
comfort  of  a  pipe  or  a  glass  at  the  pub.  .  .  .  Oh,  Bob,  has 
God  been  good  to  you?  You  ask  it  to  yourself  now — solemn. 
If  all  along  of  Him  some  day  you  find  you've  lost  your  farm 
and  your  money  and  your — and  your  wife,  vdll  you  still  say 
God's  been  good  to  vou?" 

"Yes,"  said  Robert,  "I  wull." 

He  did  not  push  her  and  his  temptation  from  him,  but  held 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  213 

her  close  to  his  heart,  while  his  eyes  stared  over  the  soft, 
straying  feathers  of  her  hair,  out  through  the  open  window 
tov/ards  the  greenish  star-pricked  sky  behind  the  orchard. 
She  was  crying  now,  sobbing  with  all  the  fret  and  grief  of 
the  past  year,  which  had  found  only  a  partial  vent  in  re- 
proaches and  peevishness.  Her  marriage  had  been  a  failure, 
an  utter  disappointment.  .  .  .  She  had  married  as  she  thought 
a  gentleman  and  a  rake,  and  he  had  proved  himself  but  a 
common  fellow,  and  had  finally  turned  teetotaller,  Bible- 
reader,  Psalm-singer — all  she  hated  and  despised  most.  Her 
heart  was  laden  with  the  bitterness  of  her  disillusion;  she 
had  no  hope  nor  pride  left. 

"Doan't  cry,  dearie,"  said  Robert;  "doan't  vrother.  I  can't 
believe  as  the  Lord  ud  ever  let  you  go  from  me,  and  as  fur 
the  rest,  hasn't  He  promised  that  as  many  as  shall  lose  houses 
and  lands  fur  His  sake  and  the  Gospels,  shall  find  'em  agaun 
in  the  warld  to  come,  wud  life  everlasting?" 

"I  don't  want  them  in  the  world  to  come,"  sobbed  Mabel; 
"what  use  ud  they  be  to  us  then?  I  want  them  now — with 
the  kid  growing  up  and  all.  I  wonder  you  don't  care  for  his 
sake  if  you  don't  care  for  mine." 

"I  do  care  fur  you  both,  but  the  Lord  will  provide.  I  mun 
trust  the  Lord.  Howsumdever,  I  tell  you  wot  I'll  do,  Mabel. 
I'll  ask  Clem  to  come  over  on  Sunday.  He  doan't  mind  wot 
he  does  on  the  Lord's  day.  He  can  look  after  the  chicken 
fur  you  and  see  as  Podgam  does  his  wark.  And  I'll  ask  him 
to  bring  Polly  too;  she'll  be  company  fur  you,  and  maybe 
she'll  mind  baby  fur  a  bit," 

"If  I'm  not  to  have  my  own  husband,  I  don't  want  any- 
body. Besides,  they  can't  get  away  except  on  Sunday,  and 
I'll  have  Saturday  and  Monday  all  alone.    Oh.  it's  too  cruel." 

Neither  words  nor  caresses  could  bring  them  any  nearer 
an  understanding,  and  on  Saturday  morning  Robert  set  out 
vrith  a  heavy  heart. 

§  10 

The  air  was  faintly  thickened  with  September,  and  held  in 
its  stillness  the  smell  of  apples  and  burning  weeds.    The  hills 


21  J.  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

of  Kent  across  the  Rother  were  covered  with  patched,  warm 
colours — the  pale  stubbles,  and  the  golden  brov.-n  of  com  yet 
standing,  the  rich,  yellov.dsh  green  of  the  hop-gardens  against 
the  dark  bice  of  the  woods,  the  red  twist  of  the  little  clay 
lanes  between  the  hedges,  and  here  and  there  a  speckled  crop 
of  farmsteading. 

Robert  w-alked  towards  them  over  the  grassy  ruts  of  the 
marsh  road;  behind  him  lay  Sussex  in  a  huddle  of  wooded 
hills,  before  him  the  Kentish  windmills  hung  motionless  sails 
in  the  sunshine.  The  Rother  had  taken  its  southward  turn 
under  Bodiam  Bridge,  flowing  past  Udiam  and  Churchsettle 
down  to  Salehurst.  The  boundary  between  Kent  and  Sussex 
was  now  the  Kent  Ditch,  sunk  deep  among  the  fields  and 
choked  with  thorn  and  alder. 

He  crossed  it  near  Peter's  Green,  and  then  set  off  up  the 
little  narrow,  chalky  lane  to  Sandhurst,  toiling  in  the  short 
noon  swelter  up  Megrim's  Hill.  It  was  on  this  very  road 
that  he  had  been  found  lying  drunk  and  unconscious  a  year 
ago.  If  he  had  not  been  straitly  taught  otherwise  he  would 
have  thought  it  a  happy  adventure  that  had  thus  laid  him  low; 
for  if  he  had  not  quarrelled  with  Mabel  and  got  drunk  at  the 
King's  Head  and  fallen  into  the  ditch  and  been  picked  out 
by  Mr.  Beeman,  then  he  would  not  have  known  the  Ever- 
lasting Mercy,  the  wonders  of  Free  Grace.  ...  Oh  happy  sin 
that  had  been  so  happily  forgiven!  But  he  must  not  think 
that;  perhaps  if  his  Calling  and  election  had  come  to  him 
some  other  way,  less  catastrophically,  he  would  not  now  have 
to  make  such  a  struggling  response  .  .  .  travail  abroad  and 
trouble  at  home.  He  might  have  loved  God  comfortably 
.  .  .  though  that  was  wrong,  too.  ...  It  was  doubtful 
whether  you  could  ever  be  really  comfortable  under 
Grace.  .  .  . 

So  Robert's  thoughts  flew  in  shreds  till  he  came  to  Four 
Throws,  and  felt  called  upon  to  speak  there  to  some  road- 
menders  who  were  eating  their  dinner  under  the  sign-post. 
These  were  Joined  by  two  women  who  had  been  gossiping 
across  a  cottage  fence,  and  then  by  several  children  on  their 
way  home  from  school  at  Hawkhurst.     Robert's  appearance, 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  215 

his  sturdy  figure  and  ruddy  skin,  with  the  rakish  look  which 
his  cap  and  clothes  and  little  moustache  gave  him — for  he  had 
given  up  trying  to  look  like  a  Gospel  minister — won  for  him 
a  certain  success  of  curiosity.  He  had  not  spoken  before  at 
Four  Throws,  though  tliey  had  the  rumour  of  him  from  Hawk- 
hurst  and  Newenden,  and  his  congregation  was  glad  to  have 
seen  him  at  last  so  that  they  could  compare  impressions  with 
the  other  villages — "a  stout  feller,  but  wud  some  middling 
queer  notions,"  they  said  of  him. 

He  spoke  only  for  ten  minutes,  then  put  on  his  cap  and 
went  on.  He  did  not  stay  to  watch  for  any  effects;  his  ex- 
perience taught  him  not  to  expect  these.  He  had  once  dreamed 
of  marvellous  conversions,  of  voices  suddenly  raised  with  his 
to  give  glory  to  the  Lamb,  of  Pentecost  on  a  village  green. 
But  now  he  had  learned  to  accept  an  outward  failure,  to  sow 
the  word  as  he  sowed  the  grain  in  the  furrows  of  his  black 
March  fields,  knowing  that  what  he  sowed  should  not  quicken 
except  it  die.  .  .  .  Here  and  there  a  question  would  be  put  to 
him,  some  doubt,  some  fumbling  experience,  shown  him,  but 
usually  any  comment  he  received  would  be  in  the  way  of 
ribaldry — the  ribaldry  that  enlivens  the  bar  of  the  Wheatsheaf 
or  the  Crown. 

When  he  left  Four  Throws  he  took  the  little  lane  that 
runs  by  Gun  Green  and  Furnace  Mill,  down  into  the  valley 
of  the  Benenden  stream,  through  many  ash  woods — then  up 
past  Scullsgate  and  Nineveh  to  the  high  road  at  Crit  Hall, 
The  day  dipped  with  him  down  into  the  valley,  and  he  came 
up  into  a  red  sky  and  a  wild,  raking  sunset  which  sent  the 
big  shadows  swimming  over  the  fields,  shadows  of  woods, 
shadows  of  barns,  and  the  big  steeple  shadows  of  oasts,  run- 
ning before  the  thick  red  light  that  poured  from  the  hills  of 
Swattenden  and  Coarsehoarne. 

Robert  spoke  again  in  Benenden  Street,  on  the  green  outside 
the  church.  Being  Saturday  night,  he  had  rather  a  good 
hearing.  Indeed  the  entertainment  he  provided  conflicted 
rather  dangerously  with  those  in  progress  at  the  Ewe  and 
Lamb  across  the  way,  where  the  farmers'  benefit  society  was 
having  a  sing-song,  and   by   the  church  at   the  end  of  the 


2i6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

green,  where  a  Harvest  Thanksgiving  was  just  going  to  start. 
The  landlords  of  both  were  inclined  to  be  resentful — the  pub- 
lican told  Bob  to  chuck  it  or  he'd  show  him  how  to  maake 
a  noise,  and  the  parson  suggested  that  he  should  come  into 
the  church  and  strengthen  his  gratitude  to  the  Lord  who  had 
redeemed  him  by  the  contemplation  of  vegetable  marrows  and 
other  tokens  of  a  bountiful  harvest. 

"They  are  the  meat  which  perisheth,"  said  Robert,  ''and 
you  ask  me  and  these  pore  sheep  of  your'n  to  chuck  labouring 
fur  the  bread  of  life,  but  go  and  disremember  our  star%ing 
souls  wud  seeing  all  the  stuff  we've  gotten  fur  our  bodies. 
I  tell  you,  my  friends" — turning  once  more  to  the  stragglers 
on  the  green — "as  thur's  tedious  liddle  sense  in  giving  thanks 
fur  the  wheat  if  you're  yourself  one  of  the  tares  wot  are  to 
be  burnt  in  unquenchable  fire,  or  sending  in  a  valiant  marrer 
as  gurt  as  a  pig  to  lay  on  the  minister's  desk,  when  you  your- 
self's  naun  better  than  the  nasty  burdock  you  picked  out  o' 
the  marrer  bed." 

The  church  bell  tanged  through  his  words,  and  a  husky 
song  came  through  the  open  door  of  the  Ewe  and  Lamb. 
Gradually  his  congregation  melted  away,  either  through  the 
square  red  doorway  of  the  inn,  or  the  golden  lozenge-shaped 
doorway  of  the  church.  The  doors  shut,  the  red  light  and  the 
golden  light  were  gone,  only  the  orange  circle  of  the  harvest 
moon  hung  in  the  dim  blue  sky.  Its  beams  seemed  to  be  cut 
off  by  the  thick,  stubble-smelling  air.  No  light  from  it 
straggled  through  the  sky,  or  to  the  earth.  Robert  could 
scarcely  see  who  was  left  to  hear  him.  He  had  a  dim  im- 
pression of  some  children  straying  towards  him  from  the 
comer  of  the  green,  but  as  they  came  nearer  he  saw  that  they 
were  a  flock  of  geese.  .  .  . 

§  II 

He  slept  that  night  in  the  high  comer  of  a  field  by  Docken- 
den.  He  was  now  growing  accustomed  to  the  fields  at  night, 
and  no  longer  lay  awake  listening  to  the  silence,  but  slept 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  217 

refreshingly  with  his  head  in  the  cool  grass.  Once  he  woke 
and  saw  that  the  moon  had  set  and  that  the  Sign  of  the  Ram 
hung  over  him,  a  scatter  of  light  on  the  dark  meadow  of 
the  sky.  The  sky  felt  very  near,  just  in  that  moment  of 
waking,  as  if  he  could  touch  it  with  the  swing  of  his  sleepy 
arm,  and  rake  down  the  shimmering  stars  of  the  Lamb  of 
God  into  the  field  beside  him.  Drowsily  content,  he  turned 
over,  burrowing  his  face  into  his  sleeve.  .  .  . 

He  woke  in  the  full  flush  of  the  dawn,  with  the  sunlight 
pouring  on  him  through  the  hedge.  It  was  about  six  o'clock, 
and  he  had  still  many  miles  to  go.  So  he  rose  and  made  the 
toilet  which  was  so  much  shorter  than  his  prayers.  He  had 
some  bread  and  cheese  in  his  pocket,  the  remains  of  his  supper 
last  night,  and  before  he  left  the  field  he  breakfasted,  washing 
the  stale  stuff  down  with  mouthfuls  of  water  from  a  land- 
spring  in  the  grass,  water  that  tasted  of  soil  and  wood  and 
rain. 

He  struck  out  across  the  fields,  for  he  was  still  in  familiar 
country,  and  hoped  to  reach  the  Tenterden  road  between 
Mockbeggar  and  London  Beach.  As  he  walked  up  Tenterden 
Street  the  echoes  of  Tenterden  chimes  went  down  it,  singing, 
"My  lodging  is  on  the  cold,  cold  ground."  The  street  was  full 
of  people  on  their  way  to  Church,  but  luckily  Robert  did 
not  feel  the  need  to  gather  himself  a  congregation.  For  one 
thing,  there  was  not  time,  he  had  still  some  ten  miles  or  so 
to  walk  through  new  country,  for  another  he  had  for  a  brief  re- 
spite ceased  to  feel  the  strivings  of  the  Word.  In  his  heart 
was  a  sense  of  rest,  just  as  in  his  body  there  was  a  sense  of 
well-being,  brought  about  by  his  long  healthy  tramp  and  his 
night  in  the  open  air.  He  felt  strong  and  happy,  with  a 
curious  sense  of  detachment  even  from  spiritual  things.  He 
was  convinced  that  the  Lord  would  bless  his  testifying  at 
Shadoxhurst — anyhow  he  did  not,  according  to  his  custom, 
give  a  thought  to  what  he  was  going  to  say.  Such  forethought- 
edness  would  have  been  highly  disrespectful  to  the  Holy 
Ghost,  Who  would  undoubtedly  impress  on  Robert's  mind 
both  his  discourse  and  the  Scripture  for  it. 


2i8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

He  left  Tenterden  by  the  Ashford  road,  and  for  some  time 
his  way  skirted  the  Upper  Levels  of  the  Rother,  known  as 
Shirley  Moor.  Here  the  Marsh  is  made  by  the  Highknock 
Channel  and  the  Reading  Sewer,  creeping  southward  tov/ards 
the  Isle  of  Oxney.  Great  stretches  of  green  level  spread  to- 
wards the  South,  melting  into  the  golden  fogs  that  veiled  the 
Lower  Marshes  of  the  Kent  Ditch  and  the  Fivewatering. 
Sussex  was  smeared  into  the  sky — there  was  no  distance,  only 
the  marsh  with  its  pollards  and  reedy  watercourses. 

At  Brook  Street  he  left  the  road  and  the  marsh,  turning 
northward  by  Boldshaves  and  Tiffenden.  He  was  in  new 
country  now,  about  twenty-five  miles  from  home — the  land  of 
Zebulon  and  the  land  of  Naphthalim,  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles. 
But  he  had  walked  the  last  few  miles  quicker  than  he  had  ex- 
pected, and  saw  that  he  would  be  at  Shadoxhurst  a  full  hour 
before  three,  when  the  service  began.  So  when  he  passed  a 
little  chapel  at  Colliam  Green,  and  heard  singing  inside,  he 
went  in. 

There  were  only  about  ten  people  in  the  congregation — 
one  or  two  old  men,  an  old  woman  with  a  sweet,  mournful 
face,  a  few  middle-aged  women,  a  vacant-looking  boy,  and  a 
girl  in  a  kind  of  invalid  chair.  The  pastor  was  about  to  ad- 
minister the  Lord's  Supper,  and  Robert  felt  drawn  to  stay, 
to  be  worshipper  before  he  went  away  to  be  evangelist.  The 
atmosphere  of  the  little  chapel  was  friendly  and  peaceful,  un- 
like so  many  he  had  been  in — the  walls  were  brown  with  much 
sunshine,  and  time  and  sun  had  mellowed  the  wood  of  the 
pews  and  the  minister's  desk. 

Bob  asked  the  minister  if  he  might  stay  and  partake,  and 
on  furnishing  proof  of  his  conversion  was  allowed  to  do  so. 
So  he  stayed  in  that  little  sun-swamped  room  with  those  few 
strangers  of  the  unknown  ',allage,  and  ate  and  drank  in  memory 
of  Dying  Love  and  in  token  of  Love  Risen  and  Alive  towards 
God  and  man.  It  was  over  in  a  little  more  than  an  hour — 
the  prayers,  the  reading,  the  preaching.  Then  the  old  men 
walked  out  with  bowed  heads  and  eyes  that  seemed  to  search 
the  distance,  the  women  set  off  briskly  for  their  homes  and 
their  husbands'  dinners,  the  vacant-looking  boy  wheeled  out 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  219 

the  girl  in  the  invalid  chair — the  little  company  scattered,  after 
shaking  hands  with  each  other  and  the  stranger. 

Robert  felt  as  if  he  would  like  to  stay — for  the  first  time 
he  experienced  the  attraction  of  a  holy  place.  He,  who  was 
now  beginning  to  feel  at  his  ease  only  when  he  worshipped  in 
the  open  air,  would  have  liked  to  kneel  through  quiet  hours 
in  one  of  those  mellow  pews  where  the  wood  was  warm  with 
sunshine,  and  feel  in  himself  the  peace  of  many  prayers,  the 
strength  of  many  communions,  not  his  own.  But  the  minister 
and  a  deacon  were  waiting  to  lock  the  doors — for  the  rest  of 
the  week  the  little  House  of  God  was  to  be  a  locked  casket 
with  its  hidden  treasure. 


S  12 

Robert  found  the  Elect  at  Shadoxhurst  very  much  as  the 
Elect  of  other  places.  The  fact  that  they  were  not  Beemanites 
was  merely  a  matter  of  jurisdiction,  not  of  faith,  and  was  due 
to  a  very  natural  wish  to  call  their  souls  their  own.  They 
were  eager  to  assure  him  both  of  their  orthodoxy  and  their 
good  will;  no  one,  they  told  him,  could  for  a  moment  question 
his  action  in  coming  to  preach  at  Shadoxhurst — now,  if  he 
had  preached  at  High  Halden,  or  at  Ebony,  where  the  minister 
had  "gone  over"  to  High  Halden,  taking  most  of  his  con- 
gregation with  him,  there  would  have  been  scandal,  for  High 
Halden  and  Ebony  were  in  flagrant  schism,  whereas  betv;een 
Goudhurst  and  Shadoxhurst  there  existed  a  spiritual  bond 
all  the  closer  because  it  was  without  any  material  restrictions. 
The  Beemanite  rite  was  strictly  followed,  with  the  exception 
of  the  hymns,  for  Shadoxhurst  in  a  moment  of  Progress  and 
Enlightenment  had  discarded  Hart's  Hymns  which  were  still 
used  at  Goudhurst  in  favour  of  the  more  advanced  and  modern 
Moody  and  Sankey. 

When  the  afternoon's  ordeal  was  over  he  had  tea  with  the 
head  deacon  and  his  family  whom  he  thought  very  worldly, 
because  the  girls  talked  to  each  other  about  blouses  and  the 
father  himself  seemed  less  interested  in  church  matters  than 
in  crops  and  politics.    Robert,  who  was  used  to  find  the  tea- 


220  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

table  merely  a  more  intimate  and  searching  continuation  of 
the  pulpit,  was  shocked  at  all  this  secularism,  which  he  also 
considered  highly  unsuitable  on  the  Lord's  Day.  He  declined 
an  invitation  to  stay  the  night,  and  left  soon  after  five,  setting 
out  in  the  direction  of  Witters  Oak. 

As  he  tramped  away,  passing  the  locked  tabernacle  at 
Colliam  Green,  it  struck  him  that  he  was  missing  a  priceless 
opportunity  by  walking  through  so  much  new  country  without 
leaving  a  crumb  of  Gospel.  He  had  come  a  long  way  merely 
to  preach  to  the  Saints,  while  all  along  the  road  were  sinners 
who  had  probably  never  heard  of  the  Particular  Mercy.  Since 
he  was  now  so  far  from  home  it  would  not  be  a  bad  plan  toj 
write  to  Mabel,  who  would  probably  get  the  letter  on  Monday 
morning,  and  tell  her  that  he  would  not  be  home  till  Tuesday 
night  or  Wednesday. 

It  struck  him  that  Mabel  might  be  a  little  annoyed  at  his 
staying  away  five  days  when  she  had  already  objected  to  his 
staying  away  three,  but  at  present  Mabel  seemed  so  much 
farther  away  than  the  Gospel  ...  the  thirst  for  sinners  was 
upon  him  (the  Saints  never  failed  to  produce  this  effect),  and 
he  pictured  himself  scattering  the  precious  Word  in  strange 
furrows,  proclaiming  Free  Grace  at  foreign  crossways  where 
every  road  led  into  the  unknown.  .  .  . 

The  post  office  at  Witters  Oak  was  open  just  before  the 
dispatch  of  the  evening  post.  Robert  bought  paper  and 
stamp  from  the  girl  in  charge  and  wrote  his  letter  at  the 
counter,  with  no  anxious  speculations  as  to  its  effect  on  Mabel, 
such  as  a  more  lively  imagination  might  have  given  him. 

"I  feel  much  refreshed  in  my  soul,  and  am,  dear  Mabel, 
your  loving  husband,  Bob." 

Having  now  set  himself  free,  he  walked  off  towards  Haffen- 
den  Quarter,  turning  south  by  Dogkennel  and  Witsunden. 
He  testified  on  the  green  at  Wagstaff,  and  there  won  the  bright- 
est laurels  of  his  experience,  for  when  he  had  done,  a  stalwart 
farmer  came  up  and  clapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  saying 
he  had  never  heard  such  good  words;  no,  not  in  Church  nor 
in  chapel  nuther.  He  was  on  his  way  to  the  latter  with  his 
Bible  under  his  arm,  but  Robert's  good  words  had  so  power- 


GREEN  APPLE  HAm'EST  221 

fully  impressed  him  that  he  saw  the  uselessness  of  seeking 
salvation  by  legal  works,  and  would  rather  wait  for  the  Elec- 
tion of  Saints.  He  persuaded  Robert  to  go  home  with  him 
to  supper  and  talk  of  the  matter  further;  he  even  asked  him 
to  spend  the  night  at  Childrens  Farm,  but  Bob's  rejoicing 
spirit  longed  for  another  night  of  freedom,  and  he  left  his 
convert,  having  commended  him  to  the  Lord.  The  farmer 
was  the  first  fruits  of  his  missionary  career,  if  he  excepted 
the  tramp  on  the  Hawkhurst  road — as  he  ruefully  felt  bound 
to  except  him. 

His  spirits  were  high  as  he  set  out  towards  Dashnanden, 
though  he  could  see  that  the  fine  weather  of  the  last  week 
was  breaking.  Rags  of  cloud  flew  low  before  a  south-west 
wind,  and  behind  them  the  stars  jigged  like  lights  through  the 
rents  in  a  curtain.  The  moon  put  an  angry  yellow  light  into 
the  clouds  and  the  sky  and  into  the  blot  and  huddle  of  the 
fields  belov/.  The  air  was  no  longer  thick  and  still,  but  rainy 
and  swift,  clear  as  flying  water. 

But  in  spite  of  it  all,  and  a  few  regrets  that  he  had  not 
taken  the  comfortable  shelter  of  Childrens  Farm,  Robert  sang 
as  he  went  along: 

"Oh,  let  me  sing  Thy  beauty,  Jesus, 

Like  sunshine  on  the  hills — 
Oh,  let  my  lips  pour  forth  Thy  sweetness 
In  joyous,  sparkling  rills." 

His  heart  seemed  full  of  the  words  and  the  love  they  ex- 
pressed. The  God  of  his  redeemed  soul  and  of  the  flying  night 
felt  very  near,  and  his  hunger  for  Him  seemed  about  to  be 
satisfied  .  .  .  that  was  the  greatest  joy  that  he  had  knov/n 
— a  hunger  that  was  part  of  satisfaction  and  a  satisfaction 
that  was  still  sweetly  hungry  ...  he  could  not  imagine  any- 
thing more  lovely,  not  even  the  perfect  satisfaction  that  he  had 
learned  to  expect  in  heaven: 

"Longing  for  home  on  Zion's  mountain, 
No  thirst,  no  hunger  there." 

As  he  came  near  Castwisell  a  drop  of  rain  fell  into  his 
singing  mouth,  and  then  the  rain  began  to  fall  thickly,  patter- 


^22  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

ing  with  a  heavy  rustle  in  the  hedge  and  the  oak  trees  by  the 
way.  The  wind  woke  and  shrieked,  and  there  was  a  sudden 
grip  of  cold  upon  the  night.  Pvobert  saw  that  he  was  to  be 
cheated  of  his  outdoor  sleep — now  that  the  weather  had 
changed  his  love  for  such  a  thing  seemed  almost  ridiculous,  and 
he  craved  for  warm  blankets  and  a  roof.  No  doubt  he  could 
find  a  doss  at  an  inn,  though  he  knew  that  most  village  inns 
were  mere  drinking  places,  with  seldom  more  than  a  couple  of 
bedrooms  to  let  to  those  who  did  not  mind  the  fleas — which 
Bob  did  not. 

He  saw  lights  at  a  cross-road,  and  found  an  inn  sooner  than 
he  had  expected.  It  was  the  Crown  at  Castwisell,  a  small 
unpromising  looking  place,  but  with  a  cheerful  red  light  stream- 
ing from  its  bar  window.  Robert  had  not  been  into  a  bar 
since  he  had  disgracefully  left  the  King's  Head  at  Bodiam; 
his  attempts  at  the  conversion  of  bars  had  been  one  and  all 
delivered  from  the  doorway,  which  provided  a  double  safety 
both  from  inward  temptation  and  outward  attack.  He  en- 
tered this  one  with  something  like  a  thrill;  the  rub  of  sawdust 
under  his  feet,  the  smell  of  beer  and  pipes,  and  rumble  of 
husky  voices  all  brought  so  many  stirring  memories  ...  of 
the  days  when  he  had  roused  the  pubs  round  Saleshurst.  .  .  . 
The  place  was  full,  as  it  was  near  closing  time,  and  scarcely 
anyone  seem  to  notice  him  as  he  came  in  from  the  wet. 

The  barmaid  was  favourably  impressed  by  the  handsome 
young  fellow  she  saw  shouldering  his  way  towards  her,  and 
felt  both  surprised  and  disappointed  when  he  asked  for  a  glass 
of  lemonade.  The  surprise  became  alarm  and  the  disappoint- 
ment disgust  when,  as  she  handed  him  the  mean  liquid,  he 
remarked:  "Now  is  the  accepted  time;  now  is  the  day  of 
salvation."  Robert  had  lately  been  struck  by  the  idea  of 
"giving  Scripture"  to  any  stray  acquaintance  of  the  lane  or 
counter.  So  far  the  results  had  not  been  encouraging,  but  his 
whole  experience  as  an  evangelist  had  taught  him  not  to  expect 
anything  so  Dead  and  Legal  as  results. 

The  barmaid  not  seeming  responsive — indeed  she  had  turned 
lier  back — he  took  his  refreshment  to  one  of  the  side  tables. 
He  sat  there  rather  moodily,  wondering  if  he  should  get  his 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  223 

bed,  or  if  in  the  meanwhile  he  ought  not  to  testify  to  this 
most  unsympathetic  assembly,  when  a  man  suddenly  slid  into 
a  chair  opposite  him  and  said: 

"Hallo,  mister!" 

"Hallo,"  said  Bob. 

At  first  he  did  not  recognize  the  fellow,  then  he  realized 
that  it  was  Darius  Ripley,  who  had  grown  a  big  black  beard. 

"I  didn't  know  you,"  he  apologized. 

"Not  with  my  new  chin — and  yet  I  knew  you,  even  with 
your  new  heart." 

Robert  started,  and  the  gipsy  laughed. 

"WTien  my  wife  tells  Gentiles  things  like  that,"  he  said, 
"she  says  it's  the  Dookerin  Dook  or  Spirit  of  Fortune  and 
gets  their  silver  money.  But  I  just  tell  you  it's  the  talk  of 
eighteen  villages." 

"Wot's  the  talk?" 

"That  you've  become  a  Gospel-engro  and  speak  good  words. 
Maybe  you'll  speak  some  to  the  poor  people." 

Robert  did  not  answer.  In  his  mind  was  a  picture — of  a 
tall  woman,  leaning  against  the  wall  of  a  village  inn,  with  a 
child  in  her  arms,  and  the  dead  leaves  drifted  up  round  her 
feet.  .  .  . 

"^\^lere's  your  wife?"  he  asked. 

"My  wife's  at  Catherine  WTieel,  bikkening  or  selling  clothes- 
pegs.    She'll  be  back  to-morrow  with  the  two  brats." 

"Two!" 

"Yes,  we  have  two  brats  now.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  see 
my  wife  and  the  two  brats?" 

Robert  felt  uncomfortable.  He  had  a  feeling  that  Ripley 
was  "after"  something — though  exactly  what,  it  would  be 
hard  to  say.  He  disliked  and  distrusted  him,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  was  intensely  relieved  to  find  that  he  could  think 
and  speak  of  Hannah  without  a  pang.  For  some  months  he 
had  been  wondering  what  would  happen  if  he  were  to  meet 
her  again;  now  he  saw  that  he  had  nothing  to  fear — even  that 
wild,  sweet  spirit  could  not  come  back  into  the  heart  where 
the  Strong  Man  Armed  kept  His  goods  in  peace. 

"You  might  come  and  speak  a  word  or  two  of  Gospel  to 


224  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

the  poor  people,"  continued  Darius  in  his  whining,  lilting 
voice.  "We  love  good  words,  and  have  heard  many — my  wife 
once  taking  the  brats  to  Church." 

Robert  suddenly  had  a  vision  of  himself  converting  the 
whole  tribe  of  Ripleys. 

"Maybe  I'll  come  and  have  a  look  at  you  to-morrer.  I'm 
sleeping  here  to-night." 

"Sleeping  where,  mister?  Eighteen  villages  knows  as  you 
love  a  doss  in  the  dry  field,  but  the  field  ain't  dry  to-night." 

"I  shall  sleep  here — at  the  inn." 

"But  you  can't  sleep  here.  They  have  only  one  spare  bed, 
and  that's  let  to  two  commercial  gents,  as  I  happen  to  know, 
having  sold  a  dawg  to  one  of  'em." 

"Maybe  they'll  let  me  shaake  down  in  the  bar." 

"Not  after  a  threepenny  lemonade.  That  ain't  their  sort 
at  the  Crown.  But  I  tell  you,  mister — how  much  was  you 
going  to  pay  for  your  room?" 

"Maybe  half  a  crownd." 

"Well,  I'll  let  you  sleep  in  our  caravan  for  that — the  whole 
caravan,  for  my  wife  and  the  brats  and  I  sleeps  in  the  tent 
on  summer  nights,  it  being  more  rom.anly.  But  you  can  have 
a  doss  in  the  caravan  for  half  a  crownd,  and  pay  us  a  shilling 
for  your  breakfast." 

Robert  did  not  feel  strongly  attracted  by  the  offer,  but 
inquiries  at  the  counter  unexpectedly  revealed  Darius  in  a 
state  of  truth — the  one  bed  belonged  indeed  to  the  commercial 
gents,  and  no  conveniences  in  the  way  of  a  shakedown  on  the 
floor  were  to  be  expected  by  threepenny  lemonades.  Mean- 
time, the  landlord  was  ominously  banging  doors  and  windows 
and  wiping  up  spilt  liquor,  and  outside  the  rain  sheeted  across 
the  lamplight.  .  .  .  Robert  made  up  his  mind  to  accept  the 
gipsy's  offer.  Of  course  it  was  a  swindle — half  a  crown  for  a 
mattress  in  his  dirty  caravan,  which  must  have  some  substantial 
drawback,  or  he  and  his  family  would  be  sleeping  in  it  them- 
selves. .  .  .  Still  it  was  satisfactory  to  know  what  really  was 
at  the  back  of  Darius's  mind — and  it  would  be  only  for  one 
night — and  Hannah  was  not  coming  back  till  to-morrow  morn- 
ing .  .  .  not  that  she  mattered. 


GREEN  APPLE  HAR\  EST  225 

§  13 

The  gipsy's  reasons  for  vacating  the  caravan  became  ob- 
vious in  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  It  was  not  merely  that  the 
place  was  alive  in  every  seam — Darius  and  his  family  were 
used  to  little  discomforts  of  that  kind — but  it  was  letting  in 
water  badly.  A  piece  of  sacking  had  been  nailed  over  the 
worst  leak,  but  it  soon  became  saturated,  and  the  rain  dripped 
through,  making  a  big  pool  which  spread  to  the  corners. 
Moreover,  Robert  was  not  alone — Darius  had  let  another 
mattress  to  a  half-bred  gipsy-boy,  who  lay  curled  up  like  a 
dog  when  Robert  came  in,  and  a  pile  of  dry  straw  and  fern 
was  covered  with  what  at  first  sight  appeared  to  be  a  mass 
of  rags  but  on  inspection  was  revealed  as  an  old  woman. 
Even  estimating  that  the  other  lodgers  were  not,  like  Robert, 
paying  hotel  prices  for  their  accommodation,  there  must  have 
been,  in  theatrical  language,  quite  five  shillings  in  the  house. 
Bob  felt  inclined  to  resent  Darius's  money-making  activities, 
but  he  was  too  tired  and  sleepy  after  his  long  tramp — he  must 
have  walked  quite  fifty  miles  since  Saturday  morning — and 
the  night  outside  was  too  utterly  fierce  and  wet  for  him  to 
make  much  protest.  After  all,  he  was  hardily  bred,  and  not 
so  fastidious  as  Mabel  would  have  liked  ...  he  huddled  up 
on  his  mattress,  and,  fighting  for  sleep,  he  won  it. 

It  seemed  hours  later  that  he  woke,  in  reality  it  was  prob- 
ably not  more  than  twenty  minutes.  He  heard  a  child  wailing 
and  a  woman's  voice.  Some  altercation  w^as  going  on  just 
outside  the  caravan,  where  Darius's  tent  was  pitched,  and 
suddenly  Robert  became  aware  that  Hannah  must  have  come 
home  and  was  pleading  with  her  master  to  let  her  in.  Evi- 
dently Darius  was  angry  with  her  for  turning  up  like  that  in 
the  middle  of  the  night;  Robert  could  hear  him  calling  her 
a  lady-dog  and  other  more  exotic  names.  In  the  end,  how- 
ever, he  relented,  for  the  wailing  of  the  child — or  rather  now 
of  two  children — and  the  woman's  shrill  defensive  voice  be- 
came muffled  by  canvas  and  eventually  whimpered  into  silence. 

A  great  stillness  hung  on  the  night,  broken  only  by  the 
drip   and   trickle  of   rain,   and   Robert   lay  awake,   thinking 


226  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

how  two  years  ago  he  had  tossed  and  groaned  and  sobbed 
at  the  thought  of  Hannah  with  Darius,  and  how  to-night  he 
lay  peacefully,  with  them  there  together  not  thirty  yards 
away.  ...  It  was  wonderful — this  aspect  of  his  conversion 
impressed  him  more  than  any  other.  His  love  for  Hannah 
had  been  so  fierce  and  dominant  a  passion  that  he  was  humble 
and  awestricken  before  the  greater  love  that  had  subdued  it. 
One  would  have  thought  that  if  his  love  for  Hannah  had  been 
taken  away  there  would  have  been  no  Robert  left.  .  .  .  And 
yet  here  he  was,  praising  God. 

"Lift  ye   then   your   voices 
Swell  the  mighty  flood — 
Louder  still  and  louder 

Praise  the  Precious  Blood.  .  .  ." 

Tears  of  happiness  and  exultation  gathered  in  his  eyes,  as 
he  turned  his  cheek  once  more  to  the  mangy  pillow. 

When  he  woke  again  it  was  daylight — a  grey  daylight,  full 
of  pale  rain.  The  rain  pattered  and  sang  on  the  roof  of  the 
caravan  and  trickled  and  gurgled  in  its  seams.  The  pool 
of  water  on  the  floor  was  soaking  the  edge  of  Bob's  mattress. 
He  sat  up  and  stretched  his  powerful  young  arms,  throwing 
back  his  head.  The  boy  and  the  old  woman  were  gone,  and 
from  outside  came  a  fine  smell  of  cooking. 

He  opened  the  door  and  looked  out.  At  first  he  saw  nothing 
but  rain,  then  he  began  to  take  stock  of  the  encampment, 
such  as  it  was.  It  consisted  of  another  caravan  very  like  the 
one  in  which  he  had  slept,  and  crammed  with  chairs  and 
baskets  and  brooms,  stowed  away  out  of  the  rain;  also  a 
couple  of  brown  tents,  from  one  of  which  came  the  savoury 
smell.  He  felt  that  he  must  at  all  costs  have  a  wash  and  a 
shave,  so  he  went  into  Darius's  tent  to  ask  for  a  bucket. 

At  first  the  interior  seemed  to  be  solid;  what  with  smoke 
and  human  beings  its  contents  were  resolved  into  one  indis- 
tinguishable mass.  In  the  middle  was  a  brazier  over  which 
Hannah — he  realized  with  a  shock  that  it  must  be  Hannah — 
was  frying  a  rabbit.  At  first  he  thought  it  was  the  dim,  reek- 
ing atmosphere  that  magnified  her,  but  a  second  look  made 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  227 

him  painfully  aware  that  she  had  grown  very  stout.  Not 
only  was  she  a  nursing  mother,  but  she  seemed  altogether  to 
have  broadened  and  coarsened;  she  had  become  typical  of 
her  race,  where  the  women,  if  they  do  not  shrink  and  shrivel 
into  middle  age,  grow  inexpressibly  sloppy  and  coarse.  Her 
eyes  still  looked  at  him  much  as  usual  from  under  the  dark, 
untidy  thatch  of  her  hair,  but  her  face  was  both  lined  and  thick- 
ened. He  recoiled.  Could  this  be  Hannah  who  had  been  so 
sweet  and  slim  in  his  arms  once? 

Her  voice  broke  up  his  memories: 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Robert  Fuller.  Darius  told  me  you 
was  here." 

"I  slept  last  night  in  the  caravan." 

"You've  come  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  us?" 

"Wull  you  listen?" 

There  was  a  sudden  catch  in  his  breath  at  the  thought  of 
Hannah  having  the  Gospel  from  his  mouth. 

"I  like  to  hear  good  words." 

Meantime  she  fried  the  rabbit,  stooping  over  the  brazier 
with  the  red  glow  on  her  face,  showing  up  pitilessly  the  net- 
work of  lines  round  her  eyes  and  mouth  and  the  growing 
heaviness  of  her  chin.  Bob  stared  at  her,  and  his  heart  was 
too  full  to  speak.  It  was  full  of  a  queer  tangle  of  feelings — 
the  realization  that  he  found  Hannah's  ugliness  attractive, 
just  because  it  was  a  part  of  herself,  her  ugliness  .  .  .  and 
yet  his  love  for  her  was  dead,  so  what  was  there  in  him  that 
survived  her  loss  of  beauty?  .  .  .  There  was  also  a  second 
realization — that  all  the  linked  events  which  had  brought  him 
to  the  camp  at  Castwisell  were  just  the  workings  of  Divine 
Providence,  willing  that  he  should  convert  Hannah  and  bring 
her  to  the  Lord,  that  she  should  learn  from  him  good  who 
once  had  learned  evil.  .  .  . 

The  new  sense  of  this  mission  almost  overwhelmed  him. 
Hannah's  soul  suddenly  became  more  to  him  than  all  the 
souls  over  which  he  had  yearned — his  mother,  Mabel,  Clem, 
all  the  poor  folk  at  cross-roads  and  village  greens.  ...  He 
would  have  sacrificed  them  all  as  the  price  of  Hannah's  re- 
demption.    His  eyes  suffused  with  tears;  he  wanted  her  so 


228  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

for  Christ.  ...  At  the  same  time  he  felt  bashful  and  re- 
luctant; he  could  scarcely  find  words  to  tell  her  the  good 
tidings.  .  .  . 

He  did  his  best  during  breakfast,  while  she  and  Darius  sat 
opposite  him  with  their  dark,  shining  eyes.  The  breakfast 
was  hardly  worth  the  covenanted  shilling,  for  the  rabbit  was 
badly  smoked,  and  Robert,  for  some  strange  reason,  could  eat 
almost  nothing.  When  the  meal  was  over,  Hannah  sat  nursing 
her  baby.  She  evidently  did  not  resent  being  preached  at 
for  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 

"There's  no  denying,  Mr.  Robert  Fuller,  that  you  speak 
good  words,"  she  said,  "and  it's  really  and  truly  wonderful, 
since  in  the  old  days  you  spoke  such  bad  ones." 

"I've  toald  you  wot's  happened  to  me;  it's  the  Lord's  Ever- 
lasting Mercy  wot's  chaanged  me  all  in  a  flash  from  red  as 
scarlet  to  white  as  snow.  You  mustn't  think  as  it's  any  warks 
of  mine." 

"You're  highly  modest,  mister,"  said  Darius  politely;  "I've 
heard  eighteen  villages  speak  of  your  goodness  and  holiness. 
It  is  very  civil  of  you  to  tell  us  such  pleasant  things,  and 
we  have  been  much  entertained  at  our  breakfast.  You  will 
come  and  sleep  in  our  caravan  another  night?" 

"I  mun  go  and  preach  the  Ward." 

"But  you  will  come  back  to-night?  We'd  be  pleased  to 
hear  more.  We  should  like  to  change  from  red  to  white  like 
you,  shouldn't  we,  Mrs.  Ripley?" 

"Indeed  we  should.  I  always  had  a  very  high  opinion  of 
Christian  people,  and  my  eldest  brat  is  a  Christian  person, 
but  not  the  younger,  for  I  have  been  told  that  it  is  not  true, 
after  all,  that  christening  saves  a  brat  from  smallpox." 

"No,  our  youngest  brat  has  been  vaccinated,  which  does 
better  than  christening.  He  will  never  have  the  smallpox 
my  Uncle  Wenzelow  died  of.  But  when  he  dies  he  will  not 
go  to  heaven.  The  eldest  brat  will  go  to  heaven,  but  perhaps 
she  will  go  there  sooner  than  is  pleasant." 

"No  baptism  can  git  you  to  heaven,"  began  Robert,  and 
Darius  had  some  difficulty  in  bringing  him  back  to  the  original 
starting-point  of  the  conversation — his  plans  for  another  night 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  229 

at  Castwisell.  It  was  still  raining  and  might  not  clear,  and 
the  caravan  was  a  beautiful,  lovely  caravan;  no  inn  could  pro- 
vide such  princely  accommodation  at  such  a  humble  price. 

Robert  felt  indignant  with  the  little  thief,  and  inclined  to 
spurn  his  swindling  suggestions.  But  he  realized  the  solemnity 
of  the  task  before  him.  He  was  now  convinced  that  he  had 
received  his  "call"  to  Shadoxhurst  simply  and  entirely  for  the 
purpose  of  his  meeting  Hannah  and  showing  her  the  way  of 
salvation.  If  he  left  her  now,  he  had  disobeyed  the  divine 
com^mand.  So  he  promised  to  come  back  for  supper.  By  then, 
he  trusted,  the  weather  would  have  cleared,  and  he  could  spend 
the  night  in  a  field. 

§  14 


*t3-' 


His  intention  was  to  sweep  a  circuit  round  Castwisell,  testi- 
fying in  half  a  dozen  places.  He  had  found  out  from  Darius 
a  little  how  the  country  lay,  and  tramped  off  in  the  direction 
of  Ihornden,  where  there  was  a  hamlet. 

But  he  did  not  go  any  farther  than  Hareplain,  the  little 
hill  above  the  Hammer  Stream.  He  felt  more  tired  than  he 
had  ever  felt  before  in  his  life;  he  wondered  why  he  should  be 
so  punished  for  a  matter  of  fifty  miles;  and  as  the  weather 
had  cleared  a  little,  he  thought  he  would  sit  down  and  rest. 
So  he  sai  on  the  trunk  of  a  tree  beside  some  gorse  bushes,  and 
watched  the  mist  drifting  along  the  Hammer  Stream  and 
against  the  hill. 

The  clouds  were  still  low,  but  they  no  longer  flew  before 
the  wind;  instead,  they  seemed  to  move  in  a  solemn  march 
along  the  horizon.  The  sky  was  like  a  smoked  plate,  and 
against  it  the  woods  were  black,  ragged  and  smeared  with 
mist  as  if  drawn  with  smudged  charcoal.  Only  the  gorse 
at  his  side  seemed  to  hold  a  colour  as  of  fire,  burning  on  the 
hill. 

He  leaned  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  and  thrust  his  stubby, 
ill-shaved  chin  deep  into  the  palms  of  his  hands.  His  eyes 
stared  out  towards  the  slow-moving  clouds  of  the  horizon, 
but  he  did  not  see  them.  He  saw  instead  the  gipsy  camp  at 
Castwisell,  with  the  two  caravans  looming  through  the  rain, 


230  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

and  the  brown  humps  of  the  tents,  and  the  red  glow  of  a 
brazier  shining  through  the  door  of  one  of  them  like  an  angry 
eye.  Then  he  saw  Hannah  stooping  over  the  brazier,  all 
blowsy  and  untidy,  with  her  youth  and  beauty  gone,  but  still 
Hannah.  Then  he  saw  her  nursing  her  baby  while  he  spoke  to 
her  of  Eternal  Life.  Her  eyes  had  never  changed  like  the 
rest  of  her;  they  were  still  those  shining  dark  greedy  eyes, 
more  the  eyes  of  an  animal  than  of  a  human  being,  since  their 
beauty  and  their  wildness  seemed  to  have  no  roots  in  a  human 
heart,  but  to  belong  to  some  impersonal  quality  of  the  wild 
and  harsh  and  lovely  earth,  or  of  nature  in  some  petty,  savage 
mood,  when  she  strews  the  ditch  with  little  corpses.  There 
was  nothing  so  big  nor  yet  so  little  as  humanity  in  Hannah. 

But  her  wifehood  and  her  motherhood  had  tamed  her,  they 
had  made  her  conform  at  least  to  the  outward  shape  of  tender- 
ness. It  was  this  tenderness,  though  it  might  not  be  more 
than  a  shadow,  which  had  made  her  so  tragically  sweet  a  year 
ago  when  she  had  stood  with  her  baby  outside  the  Eight  Bells 
at  Salehurst.  Without  it  she  had  been  joy  and  wonder  and 
passion,  but  with  it  she  was  something  more,  for  tenderness 
had  given  her  a  part  both  in  life  and  in  pain. 

He  flung  up  his  head  and  squared  his  shoulders,  clasping 
his  hands  between  his  knees,  but  he  did  not  get  up  off  his 
trunk  and  go  on  to  Ihornden,  as  it  was  now  high  time  for 
him  to  do.  He  could  not  preach  the  Gospel  v;hen  his  thoughts 
were  full  of  Hannah.  He  must  lay  the  ghost  in  his  heart 
before  he  could  hope  for  utterance.  Something  told  him  that 
the  only  way  to  do  so  was  not  to  see  her  again — to  give  up  all 
thought  of  going  back  to  Castmsell — but  to  tramp  resolutely 
through  the  southward  villages  home.  He  was  still  weak, 
in  spite  of  the  Divine  strength;  his  love  for  Hannah  had  not 
died  with  the  old  Adam  in  him,  but  was  also  mysteriously 
part  of  the  new  man  who  lived  in  Christ.  If  he  did  not  see 
her,  he  was  safe  enough,  but  if  he  saw  her — even  with  her 
youth  gone  and  her  beauty  marred  and  her  passion  tamed — 
he  still  wanted  her,  because  she  belonged  to  a  part  in  him 
which  had  not  changed,  which  he  saw  now  had  stayed  un- 
moved through  the  earthquake  of  his  conversion  .  .  .  one  of 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  231 

"those  things  which  cannot  be  shaken,"  as  the  Scripture  says. 

Yes,  undoubtedly  if  Bob  had  any  sense  he  would  now  go 
home,  and  realize  that  he  was  not  fit,  and  would  probably 
never  be  fit,  to  trust  himself  in  the  presence  of  Hannah 
Ripley.  He  would  never  again  be  puffed  up  at  the  thought 
of  the  love  he  had  conquered;  perhaps,  indeed,  his  present 
state  of  humiliation  was  a  punishment  for  his  self-confidence 
in  thinking  he  had  conquered  it,  who  was  a  very  worm  and 
no  man.  .  .  .  But  there  was  one  fatal  objection  to  the  scheme, 
and  that  was  his  knowledge  that  he  had  been  brought  into 
Kent  simply  for  the  purpose  of  converting  Hannah.  She  who 
was  his  great  danger  was  also  his  great  work,  and  if  he  turned 
away  from  the  work  out  of  fear  of  the  danger,  what  would  the 
Lord  think  of  His  unprofitable  servant? 

It  was  true  that  Hannah  did  not  look  a  likely  candidate 
for  election,  but  it  was  essential  to  distrust  appearances,  and 
even  if  he  did  not  succeed  in  impressing  her  with  the  divine 
message  now,  he  might  sow  the  seed  which  should  sprout  on 
some  future  occasion.  The  sense  of  his  mission  deepened 
upon  him.  He  saw  Hannah  as  God's  special  desire  and  care, 
and  himself  as  God's  instrument.  He  saw  a  triumphant  op- 
portunity to  show  his  thankfulness  for  his  own  election,  and 
also  to  make  a  partial  reparation  for  the  year  in  which  his 
love  for  her  had  been  sin.  The  sin  seemed  to  be  all  his  now; 
to  his  exalted  memory  it  was  as  if  he  had  led  her  astray; 
and  nov/  he  was  to  lead  her  back,  so  that  they  two  who  had 
been  together  in  darkness  should  now  be  together  in  light. 

He  dared  not  refuse  his  commission.  After  all,  the  Lord 
who  had  given  it  to  him  would  give  him  strength  to  perform 
it;  and  he  did  not  love  Hannah  as  he  had  loved  her  once, 
with  stormy  selfish  desires.  Perhaps  it  would  be  a  help — 
this  falling  off  in  her  looks.  ...  Oh,  poor,  poor  Hannah!  He 
wondered  if  she  had  suffered,  if  pain  had  drawn  the  lines  on 
her  face  and  taken  the  ease  and  slimness  out  of  her  body. 
He  found  it  hard  to  think  that  she  could  feel  pain,  who  had 
given  so  much.  ,  ,  .  But  those  who  are  without  Christ  must 
always  be  in  pain,  as  he  knew  well.  .  .  .  He  would  never 
forget  those  dreadful  months  that  had  gone  before  deliver- 


232  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

ance.  He  must  lead  Hannah  into  the  fold  of  the  Lord's  flocks 
both  for  her  sake  and  out  of  his  own  gratitude  to  the  love 
that  had  redeemed  him.  Then  he  would  go  on  his  way,  and 
never  see  her  again. 

§  IS 

After  all  these  exalted  and  grateful  feelings,  it  was  strange 
that  he  should  find  himself  totally  unable  to  preach  that  day. 
He  managed  at  last  to  drag  himself  to  Ihornden,  but  he  could 
only  loiter,  without  words  or  thoughts.  He  walked  a  mile  or 
two  out  of  the  village,  and  coming  to  an  inn,  went  in  and 
had  some  bread  and  cheese  and  a  cup  of  tea.  He  took  his 
Bible  out  of  his  pocket  and  opened  it  beside  him  on  the 
table.  Its  thumbed  pages  opened  at  the  words,  "I  have  loved 
Ihee  with  an  everlasting  love;  therefore  with  loving  kindness 
have  I  drawn  thee."  He  flushed  with  exultation;  these  very 
words  had  been  the  seal  and  earnest  of  his  own  conversion. 
They  were  for  Hannah  now;  God  was  calling  her  with  the  very 
same  words  that  He  had  called  Robert.  He  loved  Hannah 
too  with  an  everlasting  love,  she  was  His  Elect  and  precious. 
.  .  .  Bob  shut  the  book  with  trembling  fingers. 

He  roamed  about  during  the  afternoon  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Ihornden.  He  still  found  himself  unable  to  speak,  though 
he  went  to  Catherine  Wheel,  and  prayed  earnestly  for  the 
Spirit.  He  wondered  if  it  was  a  sign.  .  .  .  Was  the  Lord 
displeased?  No,  not  with  those  blessed  words  in  the  Book. 
It  must  be  the  divine  will  that  now  he  had  found  Hannah  he 
should  preach  the  Gospel  to  her  only.  He  would  be  given 
utterance  to-night.  He  wished  it  was  time  to  go  back  to 
Castwisell.  But  it  was  still  early.  A  sudden,  almost  uncon- 
trollable longing  for  a  pipe  came  over  him.  He  went  into  a 
wood,  and  lay  down  in  a  dry  place  under  the  reddening  hazels; 
but  he  could  not  rest,  though  he  felt  very  tired.  How  slowly 
the  hours  passed!  .  .  .  His  heart  was  beating  violently,  and 
the  pulses  in  his  brow  and  throat  were  hammering. 

At  last  the  restless  day  sank  into  twilight.  Large  clear 
spaces  showed  themselves  in  the  sky,  like  lakes  with  stars 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  233 

sprinkled  in  them.  The  clouds  went  in  a  great  scud  over  the 
zenith,  sweeping  the  lakes  of  stars.  The  moon  had  not  risen 
yet,  but  a  queer  glow  was  in  the  open  spaces  of  the  sky.  As 
Robert  walked  towards  Castwisell  it  began  to  rain — first  a 
few  flying  drops,  then  a  great  downpour.  When  he  reached 
the  caravan  the  night  was  all  one  inky  storm. 

Hannah  was  cooking  a  savoury  supper  of  mushrooms  and 
chicken.  She  was  still  in  her  outdoor  things,  having  just 
come  from  her  business  of  clothes-peg  selling,  with  which  she 
had  doubtless  combined  other  business  more  profitable  but 
less  reputable.  She  wore  a  long  plush  coat,  with  an  apparently 
sable  "dolman,"  and  a  big  hat  with  feathers  as  in  the  old 
days.  She  grinned  cheerfully  at  Robert,  and  he  saw  that  she 
had  lost  a  front  tooth.  Time  was  certainly  paying  her  out  for 
her  long  defiance  of  him,  now  that  at  last  he  had  her  at  a 
disadvantage. 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Robert  Fuller;  have  you  converted 
mEiny  sinners?" 

Robert  shook  his  head  sadly  and  sat  down. 

"There's  only  one  sinner  I  want  to  convert,  Hannah,  and 
that's  you." 

"I'm  not  a  sinner.  I  was  married  in  church  and  have  my 
lines;  anyways,  I'll  trouble  you  to  call  me  Mrs.  Ripley." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Robert  humbly,  "but  if  we  say  we  have  no 
sin  we  deceive  ourselves  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us." 

"That's  a  good  piece  out  of  the  Bible,  ain't  it?" 

"It  is,  surelye." 

"Then  I  don't  mind  your  telling  me  a  good  piece  out  of  the 
Bible.  But  the  Bible's  not  always  civil — and  I'd  have  you 
civil  to  me,  Mr.  Robert  Fuller." 

"Reckon  I'll  always  think  high  of  you,  Ha — Mrs.  Ripley." 

"That's  right.  And  now  I  hope  you  will  have  a  bit  of  sup- 
per with  us  and  tell  us  some  more  good  and  civil  words." 

Darius  had  come  into  the  tent. 

"It's  one  shilling  and  ninepence  we  asks  for  the  supper,"  he 
whined,  "being  poor  people,  and  having  pervided  a  chicken, 
which  is  dear  meat." 

Robert  knew  that  the  food  had  either  been  stolen  or  had 


234  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

died  of  old  age,  but  he  was  anxious  to  keep  friendly  with 
Darius,  so — as  terms  were  strictly  cash — he  handed  over  the 
coins.  But  he  would  have  liked  to  kick  the  gipsy,  for  he  felt 
that  the  little  villain  was  simply  trying  to  make  all  the  money 
he  could  out  of  the  Gospel.  He  evidently  looked  upon  Bob's 
preaching  as  a  personal  indulgence  for  which  he  would  always 
be  willing  to  pay.  But  for  Hannah's  sake  he  must  be  tolerated, 
and  if  anything  would  buy  Robert  a  few  hours  in  which  to 
fight  for  her  precious  soul,  then  the  price  would  be  forth- 
coming. 

The  fowl  had  evidently  been  stolen,  for  it  was  juicy  and 
tender.  After  it  they  ate  a  great  many  apples,  sitting  round 
the  fire  while  Hannah  nursed  one  child  and  gave  the  other 
some  sips  of  fowl  and  gravy.  It  was  a  homely,  rather  sordid 
spectacle.  The  red  glare  of  the  brazier  fell  on  their  bodies  as 
they  sat  round  it,  and  made  visible  the  thick  reeking  atmos- 
phere of  the  tent,  which  had  now  a  fresh  ingredient  in  the 
steam  of  three  sets  of  damp  clothes. 

Robert  had  eaten  a  fairly  good  supper,  but  he  still  felt 
nervous  and  unsure  of  himself,  and  during  the  meal  their 
talk — what  there  was  of  it,  for  there  had  been  big  gaps  of  silence 
— had  been  just  of  ordinary  things.  When  Hannah  had  put 
the  babies  to  sleep,  wrapped  up  In  her  shawl  at  the  back  of 
the  tent,  Darius  said  he  would  go  out  and  have  a  word  or  two 
with  his  Aunt  Truffeny  Lovell,  who  occupied  the  other  cara- 
van. She  was  a  wicked  old  woman,  he  said^  who  would  not 
keep  herself  clean,  and  in  other  ways  was  apparently  in  need 
of  nepotic  advice. 

Then  Robert  discovered  that  he  did  not  want  to  be  left 
alone  with  Hannah.  He  had  counted  on  Darius  being  with 
her  when  he  wrestled  for  her  soul.  He  should  have  taken  up 
his  burden  during  sijpper,  ...  He  got  up,  and  said  he  would 
go  round  to  the  inn,  but  Hannah  caught  his  arm. 

"Ain't  you  going  to  speak  good  words  to  me,  Mr.  Robert 
Fuller?" 

He  could  feel  her  touch  on  his  wrist  after  she  had  taken  away 
her  hand.     He  swallowed  violently. 

"I'd  sooner  spik  to  you  and  your  husband  together.     He 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  235 

mun  be  saaved  along  of  you.    And  thur's  your  Aunt  Lovell, 
too " 

"You'll  never  put  anything  good  into  her,  nor  into  Darius 
neither.  He  couldn't  do  with  such  things,  having  to  sell 
horses  and  dawgs.  I'm  just  a  poor  female  who  hasn't  her 
living  to  get.  There'll  be  no  harm  in  my  learning  what's 
good." 

Robert  thought  of  the  clothes-pegs  and  the  chicken,  but 
her  lies — like  her  worn  face  and  her  gross  body — only  made 
her  more  appealing.  He  could  not  sit  comfortable  inside  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  with  Hannah  outside  the  door,  selling 
clothes-pegs  and  stealing  chickens  and  telling  lies.  .  .  . 

He  sat  down  beside  her  on  a  pile  of  rags,  and  her  face  in 
the  red  glow  of  the  brazier  seemed  to  him  like  the  face  of  a 
soul  in  hell,  of  a  soul  perishing  at  the  bottom  of  a  gulf  from 
y/hich  his  love  alone  could  save  her  ...  no,  not  his  love — 
God's  love.  Her  eyes  looked  up  at  him,  as  she  squatted 
with  her  arms  round  her  knees,  and  as  he  looked  down  into 
them  it  was  as  if  he  was  looking  down  into  a  gulf — a  gulf 
of  darkness  and  sin  and  loss,  the  gulf  in  which  he  himself  had 
been  until  the  Everlasting  Mercy  found  him.  At  all  costs 
he  must  drag  her  out,  with  her  singed  garments  smelling  of 
fire.  .  .  .  But  suppose  instead  he  fell  in  himself,  suppose  in- 
stead of  his  pulling  her  out  she  pulled  him  in  with  her.  .  .  . 
Her  eyes  seemed  to  be  dragging  him  down. 

With  almost  a  physical  effort  he  turned  his  away,  and  once 
more  scrambled  to  his  feet. 

"No,  I  can't  spik  to  you;  it  mun  wait.  O  Lord,  this  aun't 
the  praaper  time,  me  being  but  a  weak  human  man." 

He  did  not  know  what  he  was  saying,  he  only  knew  that  she 
had  caught  his  arm  again  and  was  pulling  him  back  beside 
her. 

"Don't  go  away,  child.  Aren't  you  going  to  give  me  the 
good  word?    Are  you  afraid  of  me?    I  haven't  changed." 

He  turned  to  her  in  anguish. 

"Oh,  Nannie,"  he  said,  "God  loves  you.  He's  never  stopped 
loving  you  once,  for  all  you've  turned  agiiunst  Him  and  the 
cruel  things  you've  done " 


236  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Then  he  knew  that  he  was  merely  declaring  his  own  love 
for  her  and  calling  it  God's.  The  thought  made  him  tremble 
with  shame,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.  Through  the  tears 
her  face  looked  up  at  him  as  from  the  bottom  of  a  pit.  .  .  . 

His  last  power  suddenly  broke,  he  fell  on  his  knees  beside 
her,  and,  taking  her  in  his  arms,  covered  her  face  with  kisses. 

§  16 

It  was  all  over  in  a  second.  Suddenly  he  had  a  wild  animal 
in  his  arms,  who  fought  him  with  kicks  and  scratches  and 
loud  angry  screams.  He  released  her  as  violently  as  he  had 
taken  her,  and  saw  the  doorway  full  of  heads — Darius's,  the 
unclean  Mrs.  Lovell's,  and  some  children's  heads  which  he  had 
not  seen  before. 

Hannah  sat  on  the  ground,  rocking  herself  and  sobbing. 
Robert  could  feel  the  blood  trickling  down  his  cheek,  where 
her  nails  had  dug  five  angry  furrows. 

Darius  came  into  the  tent. 

"What's  happened?"  he  asked  furiously. 

There  was  no  answer. 

"You're  a  fine  Gospel  Minister.  I  leave  you  alone  ten  min- 
utes with  my  wife,  for  you  to  teach  her  how  to  be  good  and 
go  to  Heaven,  and  then  you  start  this  sort  of  game." 

Robert  could  not  speak.  He  was  quite  without  words  and 
almost  without  thought. 

"What's  happened?"  asked  Darius,  taking  his  wife  by  the 
shoulder. 

"He's  a  beast,"  sobbed  Hannah,  "a  wicked  beast." 

"I've  done  her  no  harm,"  stammered  Robert,  finding  voice 
at  last. 

"No  harm!"  shrieked  Hannah.  "D'you  think  it's  no  harm 
to  be  messed  about  by  you?"  and  she  would  have  flown  at  him 
again  if  Darius  had  not  held  her  back. 

"You're  a  swine,"  he  said  to  Robert,  "a  common  swine,  and 
eighteen  villages  shall  know  it,  Mr.  Gospel  Preacher." 

Bob  turned  white. 

"It'll  be  gorgeous  news  for  all  the  folk  you've  preached  at 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  237 

to  be  told  that  you  can't  be  left  alone  with  a  man's  legal, 
certificated  wife.  They'll  be  pleased — they'll  say,  'This  is  a 
fine  Gospel  and  a  damn-fine  Gospeller.' " 

The  tent  was  full  of  noise.  The  commotion  had  wakened 
the  babies,  who  were  crying  loudly.  Hannah  was  still  sobbing, 
and  Mrs.  Lovell  was  jabbering  incomprehensibly. 

"Haven't  you  a  word  to  say?"  continued  Darius.  "I  thought 
you  was  full  of  'em.  Don't  you  know  what  it'll  mean  if  I 
tells  everyone  in  the  Hop  Country  that  you  tried  to  steal  my 
lawful,  certificated  wife — seduce  her,  as  is  said  by  them  what 
uses  fine  language?  Don't  you  know  what  it'll  mean  to  your 
trade?  Don't  you  know  as  you'll  never  be  able  to  lift  up 
your  head  or  your  voice  again?" 

But  Robert  knew  only  one  thing — that  he  had  fallen  from 
grace. 

"You  can't  speak  a  word.  You're  ashamed  of  yourself, 
and  it's  the  only  good  thing  I  see  in  you,  you  gorgy  swine. 
Maybe  if  you're  ashamed  I  shan't  be  so  hard  on  you  as  I 
might  feel  disposed,  being  a  lawful,  legal  husband." 

He  looked  searchingly  at  Robert. 

"He's  half  a  fool,"  said  Mrs.  Lovell.  "You'll  have  to  speak 
plainer,  Darius." 

"Hold  your  tongue,  you  old  mare,"  said  her  nephew;  "and 
you  listen,  Mr.  Robert  Fuller.  I'm  not  a  hard  man,  and  I 
don't  want  to  spoil  your  trade  as  a  priest  or  minister,  so  may- 
be I'll  not  tell  anyone  about  the  beastly  way  you've  behaved." 

"Tell  if  you  like — I  deserve  it — and  it  maakes  no  odds  to  me. 
I  can't  never  preach  the  mercy  of  God  no  more." 

"You  can,  if  nobody  knows  your  private  habits.  And  I 
shan't  ask  a  lot  of  you,  I  ain't  a  blackmailer,  and  I  knows 
you  ain't  rich.  If  you  pays  me  five  quid  to  buy  my  wife  a 
new  hat  and  shawl  and  make  all  straight  and  comfortable, 
then  we'll  call  it  quits." 

"Wot?"  said  Robert  sharply.  Something  had  penetrated 
his  thoughts. 

"I  say,  as  it  can  easily  all  be  settled  for  a  small  sum.  Han- 
nah ull  forgive  you,  and  my  Aunt  Truffeny  Lovell  ull  hold 
her  tongue,  and  my  newies  Tom  and  Benedict,  and  myself 


238  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Darius  Ripley  ull  hold  our  tongues.  And  you'll  pay  us  five 
quid  one  week  from  now,  and  we'll  call  it  quits." 

"You'll  be  a  fool  if  you  don't  do  it,  gentleman,"  said  Auntie 
Lovell.  "I  call  five  quid  nothing  for  what  you've  done.  The 
other  gentleman  had  to  pay  ten,  and  he  scarce  got  hold  of 
Hannah  properly,  .  .  ." 

"Hold  your  tongue,  you  old  bitch,"  shouted  Darius.  But 
it  was  too  late.  Robert's  slow  mind  had  leaped  at  last,  and 
the  next  minute  his  body  leaped.  Without  a  word  he  flung 
himself  upon  Darius,  and  bore  him  down  struggling  to  the 
ground. 

"Help!  Help!  Police!  Police!"  shouted  Auntie  Lovell. 

Hannah  screamed  loudly. 

Robert  and  Darius  fought  on  the  ground,  rolling  over 
and  over.  The  gipsy  was  wiry  and  well  trained,  but  Bob 
was  a  bigger  man,  and  his  hands  had  a  strangling  grip  upon 
Darius's  throat.  He  would  probably  have  killed  him  had  not 
the  fight  been  interrupted  by  two  men  who,  driving  by  in  a 
gig,  had  heard  the  screams  and  hurried  to  the  spot. 

"He's  murdering  my  husband,"  shrieked  Hannah. 

"Shoot  him!     Shoot  the  mad  dog!"  cried  Mrs.  Lovell. 

Robert  was  seized  and  pulled  off  Darius,  just  as  he  had 
nearly  choked  the  breath  out  of  him.  The  gipsy  lay  uncon- 
scious on  the  ground,  with  a  thin  stream  of  blood  running  from 
the  comer  of  his  mouth. 

"We'd  better  send  for  the  police,"  said  one  of  the  men. 

There  was  a  chorus  of  tears  and  protests  from  the  gipsies. 

"You  needn't  trouble,  mister.  We  ain't  spiteful.  We  don't 
want  the  police." 

"I  dare  say  not,"  said  the  first  man  grimly,  "but  I  think 
they  ought  to  look  into  this.  You  drive  off  to  the  throws, 
Mr.  Gain,  and  I'll  stop  along  here  wud  this  lot." 

"Think  you'll  be  all  right  alone?" 

"Oh,  I'll  be  right  enough.  There's  only  women  and  chil- 
dren— and  this  fellow,  who  doesn't  look  as  if  he  had  much 
fight  in  him  now." 

Robert  was  huddled  on  the  earthen  floor,  blood  and  tears 
on  his  unspeakably  dirty  face.    His  hands  were  clasped  before 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  239 

him  in  the  attitude  of  prayer.  But  he  did  not  pray.  There 
was  no  use.  Neither  prayer  nor  repentance  nor  love  nor  faith 
could  help  him  now,  who  had  trampled  imder  foot  the  Promises 
of  God. 

I  17 

Clem  and  Polly  had  been  to  tea  with  Elizabeth  Wheelsgate 
at  Marsh  Quarter,  so  it  was  not  till  fairly  late  that  they  found 
^label's  telegram.  The  telegraph  boy  had  pushed  it  under  the 
door,  and  they  both  jumped  as  if  they  had  found  a  snake  on 
the  mat. 

"That  must  be  Mabel!"  cried  Polly.  "No  one  else  sends 
telegraphts.    Oh,  wotsumdever  can  have  happened  now?" 

Clem  picked  it  up  and  opened  it  gingerly. 

"Come  at  once  in  dreadful  trouble  Mabel." 

"Oh,  wotsumdever  can  that  be?"  cried  Polly. 

"\Miur's  Bob?  He  mun  be  at  hoame  now.  He  wur  com- 
ing back  Monday." 

"She  doan't  say  wot  it  is,  but  I  reckon  it's  Bob's  trouble, 
or  he'd  have  come  araound." 

"We  mun  go  and  see.  I  can't  maake  out  wot's  happened 
the  way  she  puts  it." 

They  did  not  wait  to  change  their  clothes,  but  set  off  at 
once,  Polly  in  her  tight  blue  dress — which  had  undergone  a 
fresh  metempsychosis  with  the  help  of  an  old  lace  gown  of 
Mabel's — and  Clem  in  his  black  coat  and  small,  ridiculous 
bowler.  They  did  not  even  go  over  to  the  farm  to  fetch  the 
trap.  By  striking  across  the  fields  Clem  calculated  that  they 
ought  to  reach  the  Bodiam  road  in  about  twenty  minutes, 
just  in  time  to  catch  the  carrier's  cart  on  its  way  back  from 
Ticehurst. 

They  managed  this  successfully,  and  arrived  at  Campany's 
Hatch  in  a  little  less  than  an  hour.  The  place  seemed  de- 
serted as  they  walked  up  the  drive,  but  when  they  came  to 
the  house  they  saw  the  boy  Podgam  dawdling  behind  a  barn. 

"Is  your  maaster  in?"  asked  Clem.  "Whur's  your  missus? 
We've  just  had  a  telegrapht." 


240  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

Podgam  came  forward,  a  grin  struggling  on  his  face  with  a 
look  of  proper  concern. 

"Missus  is  indoors,  surelye;  and  maaster — he's  in  jail." 

Clem  and  Polly  stared  with  their  mouths  wide  open. 

"I  thought  maybe  you'd  have  known.  They  know  at 
Ethnam  and  at  Gurt  Wigsell,  and  it's  all  over  Peter's  Green." 

'^Doan't  stand  talking  to  him,  Clem,"  said  Polly,  "but  come 
in  quick  and  see  Mabel.    Doan't  scratch  your  head  lik  that." 

"I'm  vrothered,"  said  Clem. 

"Well,  come  in  and  see  Mabel.    Maybe  it  aun't  true." 

"It's  true  as  Gospel,"  put  in  the  boy;  "he's  bin  had  up  for 
murdering  Darius  Ripley." 

"Murdering.  .  .  ." 

"That's  wot  they  say  at  Ethnam,  but  at  Peter's  Green  they 
say  it  wur  for  kissing  Mrs.  Ripley.  .  .  ." 

Polly  seized  Clem  by  the  arm  and  dragged  him  towards  the 
house.  Mabel  was  at  first  nowhere  to  be  seen,  but  after  they 
had  called  her  once  or  twice  she  came  out  of  the  scullery,  her 
face  puffed  up  and  disfigured  with  crying.  When  she  saw 
Clem  and  Polly  she  began  to  cry  afresh,  but  the  tears  would 
hardly  come  from  her  swollen  eyes,  they  merely  oozed  and 
dribbled,  and  when  she  spoke  her  voice  was  nearly  gone. 

"Oh,  you've  come  at  last.  ...  I  don't  want  Jim  and  Mary 
...  I  shall  die  of  shame." 

"Wot's  happened?    Is  it  true  that  Bob " 

"He's  in  jail  at  Headcorn." 

She  tottered  and  fell  back  against  the  door.  Polly  caught 
her  in  her  arms. 

"Come  into  the  kitchen,  and  I'll  maake  you  a  cup  of 
tea." 

Once  in  the  kitchen  Mabel  sank  into  a  chair  and  covered 
her  face.  She  was  utterly  broken,  her  spirit  and  her  self- 
respect  were  gone  together.  She  sat  rocking  herself,  with  hec 
hair  all  rough,  and  one  great  hank  loose  on  her  shoulder.  She 
had  no  softness  or  beauty  left;  even  her  characteristic  "re- 
finement" seemed  to  have  deserted  her.  She  looked  crude  and 
degraded.  Clem  stared  at  her  without  speaking.  He  was  hor- 
ribly scared  at  h°r  Tnef,  and  y?t  be  v/anted  to  know  about 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  241 

Bob  .  .  .  what  had  happened  to  him?  .  .  .  what  was  this 
dreadful  thing  he  had  heard?  ...  if  only  Mabel  would  tell 
him.  ...  He  would  have  liked  to  ask  her,  but  at  present  he 
felt,  as  he  put  it,  all  gummed  up.  The  only  person  who  had 
any  presence  of  mind  was  Polly,  and  she  expressed  it  not  in 
words  but  in  action,  scurrying  about  with  the  kettle  and  tea- 
pot. 

Mabel  began  at  last  to  sob  and  mutter: 

"Don't  stand  gaping  at  me,  you  fool,"  she  said  to  Clem. 
"Can't  you  do  something?     Oh,  this'll  kill  me.     I  know  it." 

"But  wot'll  I  do?     Wot's  happened?" 

"I've  told  you.  Bob's  in  jail  ...  for  assaulting  Darius 
Ripley,  when  he  .  .  .  when  he  .  .  ." 

A  burst  of  h3^sterical,  tearless  sobbing  choked  her  words. 
Polly  began  to  lose  patience. 

"Can't  you  kip  yourself  quiet,  Mabel,  and  tell  us  just  wot's 
happened?  Maybe  Clem  can  do  summat,  but  he  can't  do  naun 
if  he  scarce  knows  half." 

"Don't  you  understand?"  sobbed  Mabel;  "you  must  be 
pretty  thick.  That  beast  of  a  Bob  has  been  caught — caught — 
caught  out — with  Hannah  Ripley,  and  now  he's  in  prison  for 
assaulting  her  husband  when  he — he  found  them  together." 

Clem  and  Polly  stared  at  each  other  in  utter  bewilderment. 

"It  can't  be  true,"  cried  Clem.  "Bob  ud  never  do  such  a 
thing  now  he's  Saaved." 

Mabel  gave  a  laugh  which  was  even  more  unpleasant  than 
her  crying. 

"That's  it  .  .  .  now  he's  Saved.  Oh,  he's  enjoyed  himself 
many  a  time — now  he's  Saved.  You  bet! — going  off  for  those 
week-ends." 

"But,  Mabel,  you  doan't  mean  .  .  .  you  know  fur  truth 
as  he  wur  at  Bethersden  and  Biddenden  and  all  them  pliiaces." 

"Yes,  but  we  don't  know — at  least  we  didn't  know — what 
he  was  up  to  on  the  way.  Now  perhaps  we've  an  idea  why 
he  wouldn't  go  by  train,  and  took  such  a  mortal  time  getting 
backwards  and  forwards  .  .  .  and  perhaps  we  guess  where  he 
slept  of  a  Sunday  night." 

"Hold  your  tongue,"  said  Clem  angrily.    "I  d^'an't  believe 


242  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

it.  Bob's  bin  straight  from  the  day  he  got  Salvation.  His 
way  aun't  my  way,  but  it's  a  straight  way,  and  I  know  he's 
kept  to  it." 

"Then  how  d'you  account  for  his  being  in  jail — all  along  of 
his  row  with  Darius  over  Hannah  Ripley?" 

"Has  it  bin  proved?    Has  he  bin  tried  yit?" 

"He's  to  be  tried  to-morrow.  But  it's  all  quite  plain.  I 
heard  it  from  Policeman  here,  who'd  heard  from  the  police  at 
Headcom.  Darius  is  in  the  Union  Infirmary  over  there — 
Bob's  nearly  killed  him." 

"But  they  mayn't  have  quarrelled  about  wot  you  think. 
Reckon  thur's  a  middling  lot  of  things  as  Darius  wants 
bashing  fur." 

"That's  it — you  stand  up  against  me,  as  you  always  do.  I 
tell  you  everybody  knows  that  Darius  caught  him  with  his 
wife— Ugh!  I  could  be  sick.  .  .  .  You'll  just  be  shown  up  as 
a  fool  if  you  believe  different.  Bob  spent  Sunday  night  with 
those  dirty  gipsies  .  .  .  it's  proved,  it's  well  known — and  on 
Monday  Darius  came  back  sudden,  and  caught  Bob  and 
Hannah  so  as  there  was  no  mistake  .  .  .  and  then  Bob  went 
for  him,  and  would  have  killed  him  if  he  hadn't  been  pulled 
off  .  .  .  that's  what  they're  saying  everywhere,  and  if  you 
don't  believe  me  you  can  go  and  see  for  yourself." 

"And  I  wull  go,  surelye.    We'll  all  of  us  go." 

"I  shan't.  I'll  never  set  eyes  on  Bob  again.  I've  done 
with  him." 

"Oh,  Mabel  .  .  ."  and  Polly  began  to  cry,  her  tears  spilling 
into  the  cup  of  tea  that  she  carried  to  her  sister-in-law. 

"I've  done  with  him,"  repeated  Mabel  sullenly.  "I've  stood 
enough.  Oh,  it  was  pretty  bad  when  he  turned  all  soppy  and 
religious,  but  now  I  know  he  only  used  his  religion  to  cover 
his  beastliness  ...  he  used  it  so  as  he  could  go  messing  after 

Hannah.    Look  at  this " 

She  took  a  letter  out  of  her  pocket  and  handed  it  to  Clem. 
It  was  Bob's  unfortunate  letter  from  Witters  Oak. 

"I  have  made  up  my  mind,"  read  Clem,  "to  come  home  slow 
by  Sissinghurst  and  Dashnanden  and  other  foreign  places, 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  243 

seeing  as  the  Gospel  must  be  preached  to  them  also,  so  may 
not  be  back  till  Tuesday,  and  hope  you  won't  mind." 

"There — you  see  the  sort  of  lies  he  tells!  Always  the 
Gospel  when  he's  plotting  to  get  with  Hannali.  Don't  tell 
me  this  is  the  first  time  he's  done  it.  I  bet  you  he's  been 
unfaithful  to  me  a  dozen  times  and  called  it  the  Gospel.  Oh, 
the  damned  hypocrite!  Oh,  I'd  sooner  he  was  the  softest, 
soppiest  Y.M.  that  ever  was  rather  than  the  beast  he  is.  I 
thought  I  was  ill-used  then,  but  now^-Oh,  it  isn't  fair;  I've 
been  put  upon  all  through.  He  only  married  me  to  help  him 
forget  her,  and  when  he  found  he  couldn't,  he  took  up  with 
her  again — you  know  he  did,  that  time  he  met  her  at  Sale- 
hurst  and  then  came  home  and  was  such  a  brute  to  me.  And 
when  he  saw  I  wasn't  going  to  stand  any  nonsense,  he  went 
and  invented  his  religion  as  an  excuse  for  getting  away  from 
me  and  going  with  her.  Oh,  I  see  through  it  all  now;  he's  a 
h^-pocrite  and  a  canting  scoundrel,  and  I'll  not  see  him  again 
as  long  as  I  live." 

"Mabel,"  said  Clem,  "you  know  as  all  that  aun't  true.  I 
can't  believe  as  Bob's  done  anything  wicked.  Anyways,  I'm 
going  to  Headcom  to  see." 

"And  I'm  going  back  to  father  at  Bulverhythe." 

"Mabel,  you  can't!"  cried  Polly.  "Wot'll  happen  when  it's 
all  cleared  up,  as  it  is  sure  to  be,  and  Bob  comes  hoame  and 
finds  you  and  baby  gone?" 

"It  won't  be  all  cleared  up — you  take  my  word.  Any- 
how,   he   was   found    with   Hannah,    and    that's  enough    for 


me." 


"Well,  I  call  you  a  tedious  cruel  girl,"  sobbed  Polly;  "pore 
Bob  to  have  his  hoame  all  busted  up  because  of  some  fool's 
mistaake  that's  bin  maade." 

"Most  like  them  'gyptians  have  played  him  a  trick,"  said 
Clem.  "Darius  ud  be  jealous  and  want  to  sarve  him  out  for 
wunst  being  so  set  on  Hannah." 

It  was  an  unfortunate  remark.  Mabel  burst  into  a  storm 
of  crying,  and  staggering  to  her  feet  went  groping  to  the 
door. 


244  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Clem,  you  gurt  owl!"  cried  Polly.  "Mabel,  he  means  naun 
saave  wot's  over  and  done." 

"Nothing's  over  and  done.  He  never  loved  me  ...  it  was 
always  her  .  .  .  and  always  will  be  her.  ...  I'm  going  to 
father — now — to-night . ' ' 

She  fumbled  for  the  door  handle,  being  too  blind  with  tears 
to  see.  She  had  made  herself  quite  ill  with  crying,  and  as  she 
groped  and  staggered  there,  was  suddenly  and  violently  sick. 

Polly  ran  up  to  her. 

"Come  wud  me,  Mabel.  Doan't  vrother  any  more.  You 
can't  go  to-night,  anyways;  you've  maade  yourself  ill.  Come 
and  I'll  help  you  git  to  bed,  and  Clem  and  I  ull  stay  the  night 
here,  and  to-morrow  fust  thing  he'll  go  to  Headcom." 

"And  I'll  go  to  Bulverhythe." 

Polly  saw  the  uselessness  of  trying  to  argue  with  her  as  she 
was  now.  She  half  led,  half  dragged  her  up  the  stairs  to  the 
room  where  Robert's  child  lay  sleeping.  At  the  sight  of  his 
little  dark  head  among  the  white  mass  of  pillows  on  the  big 
bed,  Polly's  heart  suddenly  became  tender  and  savage.  She 
stooped  over  little  Nat,  her  breast  heaving  passionately,  and 
one  or  two  tears  fell  upon  his  face. 

"I'll  leave  him  behind  with  you,  if  you  like,"  said  Mabel. 

It  was  a  piece  of  diplomacy  on  her  part. 

"WuU  you?"  asked  Poll,  eagerly  and  incredulously. 

"If  you  like.  Father  doesn't  care  for  kids,  and  I  know 
you'll  look  after  him  all  right.  .  .  .  And  I  don't  want  to  take 
Bob's  child  away  from  him  if  he  wants  to  keep  it;  but  I'll 
never  go  back  to  him — never — never.  I've  finished  with  Bob 
— and  I  wish  to  God  that  I'd  never  begun." 

5  i8 

Clem  set  out  for  Headcom  in  the  very  first  train  running  on 
the  Rother  Valley  railway.  Even  so,  he  arrived  only  just  in 
time  for  the  trial  before  the  county  magistrates.  Bob  was 
being  led  into  the  dock  just  as  Clem  at  last  succeeded  in 
making  his  way  into  the  court  house.  The  sight  of  his  brother 
was  a  shock  to  him.    During  a  nearly  sleepless  night  and  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  245 

long  jolting  journey,  none  of  the  various  eventualities  which 
had  occurred  to  him  had  taken  into  calculation  any  possibility 
of  Robert's  guilt.  But  now  when  he  saw  him — that  un- 
shaved,  haggard  face,  those  dreadful  eyes — his  guilt  suddenly 
became  one  of  the  chances  with  which  he  had  to  reckon. 
Bob  would  not  look  like  that  if  he  was  merely  the  victim  of 
circumstances,  of  a  misunderstanding,  of  a  revengeful  trick. 
He  would  know  that  he  could  vindicate  himself,  that  a  set  of 
gipsies  were  not  formidable  accusers.  Of  course,  Hannah's 
share  in  the  matter  would  make  it  very  hard  for  him;  she 
might  even  have  subjected  him  to  severe  temptation.  But 
that  circumstance  was  not  enough  in  itself  to  account  for  his 
abject  appearance,  nor  the  possibility  that  his  earlier  relations 
with  her  might  be  exposed  at  the  trial.  After  all,  he  had  no 
character  to  lose;  he  had  never  posed  as  anything  but  a  con- 
verted sinner.  The  tale  of  his  misdeeds  had  been  told  by 
himself  from  many  a  village  pulpit,  from  many  a  village  cross- 
Vvays;  he  could  not  object  to  its  repetition  here. 

Yet  there  he  stood  like  a  man  smitten,  with  bowed  head 
and  hanging  jaw,  and  terrible  red-rimmed  eyes  that  seemed  to 
be  staring  at  something  unseen  and  horrible  beyond  the  court 
house  wall.  .  .  .  Clem  remembered  that  that  was  how  he 
used  to  look  in  the  days  before  his  conversion,  when  he  felt 
convinced  that  he  was  damned.  He  took  no  notice  of  what 
was  going  forward;  he  made  no  answer  when  the  chairman 
of  the  magistrates  addressed  him.  He  just  stood  there  looking 
— damned. 

The  question  was  put  whether  he  would  plead  guilty  or 
not  guilty,  and  Clem  knew  that  Bob's  answer  would  settle  the 
matter  definitely  as  far  as  he  was  concerned.  But  Bob  re- 
fused to  plead  at  all,  he  refused  to  answer  the  magistrate's 
question.  He  just  stood  there  dumb  and  stricken.  Accord- 
ingly his  plea  was  entered  as  "not  guilty." 

The  evidence  was  next  taken.  Darius  Ripley,  Hannah 
Ripley  and  Truffeny  Lovell  were  witnesses,  as  well  as  the  two 
farmers  who  had  stopped  the  fight.  Darius's  throat  was  ban- 
daged, and  he  looked  pale  and  shaken — he  was  allowed  to  sit 
while  he  gave  evidence.    None  of  the  gipsies  looked  comfortable 


246  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

in  the  witness-box,  they  were  too  used  to  finding  it  an  ante- 
room to  the  dock.  When  Darius  had  finished  his  evidence, 
and  the  accused  was  asked  if  there  was  any  question  he 
wanted  to  put  to  the  witness,  it  was  obviously  a  bad  moment 
both  for  Ripleys  and  Lovells.  But  Robert  had  no  questions 
to  ask. 

Thus  encouraged,  the  witnesses  became  less  nervous,  and  a 
fine  story  came  out  against  the  prisoner.  Darius  Ripley  had 
met  him  at  the  Crown  at  Castwisell,  and,  as  he  was  unable 
to  find  accommodation  for  the  night,  invited  him  to  sleep 
in  his  caravan.  The  invitation  had  been  repeated  for  the 
following  night,  Fuller  having  spent  the  day  preaching  in  the 
neighbourhood.  After  supper  Ripley  had  occasion  to  leave 
him  alone  with  his  wife,  and  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  heard 
loud  screams.  He  ran  to  the  rescue  and  found  his  wife 
struggling  with  the  accused.  On  his  entrance  Fuller  hurled 
himself  upon  him  and  would  have  killed  him  but  for  the 
timely  arrival  of  Mr.  Boorman  and  Mr.  Gain.  Hannah  bore 
out  her  husband's  evidence.  She  had  known  the  prisoner  in 
Sussex  some  years  ago,  she  said,  and  he  had  objected  to  her 
marriage.  Mrs.  Lovell  and  the  two  farmers  then  gave  their 
accounts,  and  there  seemed  little  more  to  be  said.  Certainly 
Bob  did  not  say  anything. 

Clem  sat  bolt  upright,  gripping  his  bowler  with  both  hands 
between  his  knees.  This  story  could  not  be  true  .  .  .  and  yet 
he  saw  painfully  how  true  it  might  be — ^poor  Bob,  confronted 
with  sudden  temptation  after,  long  self-denial,  tired  and  tried 
with  the  failure  of  his  married  life  and  his  bungling  efforts 
as  a  preacher,  and  brought  back  again  into  the  power  of  his 
life's  great  love.  ...  It  was  not  so  strange  that  he  had 
fallen — though  Clem  did  not  believe  that  the  circumstances 
were  just  as  the  gipsies  had  given  them — but  it  was  very  cruel. 
For  now  whatever  man  did  in  the  way  of  punishment  Bob 
would  punish  himself  without  forgiveness.  Clem  could  read 
that  on  his  brother's  face.  He  stood  there  a  man  to  whom 
man's  judgment  is  nothing,  since  his  own  heart  has  condemned 
him.  He  had  no  wish  either  to  accuse  others  or  to  excuse 
himself.     He  had   already   been   accused   and   found   guilty 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  247 

before  a  greater  Judge;  it  was  nothing  to  him  if  Headcorn 
Petty  Sessions  made  him  white  or  black. 

The  magistrates  consulted  together  and  gave  judgment 
through  their  chairman.  They  found  the  prisoner  guilty  of  a 
very  grave  offence.  He  was  lucky  in  not  finding  himself 
arraigned  for  attempted  murder,  with  a  chance  of  being  sent 
into  penal  servitude.  The  magistrates  were  taking  into  con- 
sideration his  position  as  a  preacher,  and  all  that  his  loss  of 
character  would  mean  to  him.  But  they  could  not  let  him  off 
with  a  lenient  sentence.  Though  this  was  his  first  appearance 
in  court  he  did  not  bear  an  unblemished  character,  and  he 
had  been  found  guilty  of  a  brutal  and  cowardly  crime.  He 
must  go  to  prison  for  six  months. 

Robert  made  no  sign.  He  did  not  seem  to  care — hardly  to 
understand.  A  constable  touched  his  arm,  and  he  went  out 
of  the  dock,  to  make  room  for  the  next  item  of  the  magis- 
trates' busy  morning. 

§  19 

Clem  asked  and  was  granted  permission  to  see  Bob  before 
he  went  to  Maidstone  Jail.  He  was  with  his  brother  for 
about  ten  minutes,  in  the  presence  of  a  constable.  Robert 
looked  much  tlie  same  as  he  had  looked  in  court,  but  he 
seemed  less  oblivious  of  his  surroundings.  When  Clem  came 
into  the  room  his  eyes  lit  up  for  a  moment,  then  darkened. 
For  a  time  neither  of  them  could  speak,  and  they  looked  at 
each  other  in  silence. 

"Well,  Bob,"  said  Clem  at  last,  "all  this  is  unaccountable  sad 
and  I'm  middling  upset  about  it." 

"So  am  I,"  said  Bob. 

"But  I've  come  to  tell  you  not  to  vrother,  sinst  I  mean  to 
stick  by  you." 

His  brother  said  nothing,  and  Clem  felt  disappointed. 

"Dud  you  see  me  in  court?" 

Bob  shook  his  head. 

"I  wur  thur,  though.  I  come  along  to  Headcorn  by  the  fust 
train,  having  heard  about  you  last  night." 


248  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Does  Mabel  know?" 

"Surelye.  She  sent  a  telegrapht  to  Poll  and  me.  Poll's 
with  her  now." 

A  slow  flush  darkened  on  Bob's  cheek. 

"She'll  never  spik  to  me  agaun,  I  reckon." 

"Doan't  you  fear — we'll  bring  her  raound." 

"There  aun't  no  cause  fur  her  to  be  brung  raound.  Why 
shud  she  spik  to  me?     I'm  lost." 

"Oh,  doan't  you  say  such  a  wicked  thing." 

"It's  true.  It's  in  the  Scriptures:  'If  we  sin  after  that  we've 
received  the  knowledge  of  truth  thur  remaineth  no  more  sacri- 
fice fur  sins.'  " 

"But,  Bob,  it  dudn't  all  happen  as  them  Egyptians  said.  I 
know  as  you  wum't  as  bad  as  all  that.  Why  dudn't  you  ask 
Darius  questions  when  the  gentleman  said  you  m'ght?" 

"I've  got  no  questions  to  ask  of  nobody.  God  is  m}'-  Judge, 
and  He  has  condemned  me.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  living  God." 

"But  dud  you  truly  maake  free  wud  Hannah?" 

"Surelye,  or  I  shudn't  be  here  now.  After  all  the  tender 
mercies  of  God  to  me  I  turned  lik  a  dog  to  my  vomit  agaun 
.  .  .  'Oh,  of  how  much  punishment  shall  he  be  worthy  who 
hath  counted  the  blood  of  the  covenant,  wud  which  he  was 
sanctified,  an  unholy  thing,  and  done  despite  to  the  Spirit 
of  graace.' " 

"Doan't  say  such  things." 

"I  mun  say  them.    They're  my  judgment." 

There  was  a  few  moments'  awkward  silence.  They  sat 
staring  at  each  other.  Or  rather  Clem  stared  at  Robert,  for 
Robert's  gaze  was  vacant  and  remote. 

"Six  months  woan't  sim  so  long,"  said  the  younger  brother 
huskily  at  last,  feeling  it  best  to  concentrate  on  the  concrete 
aspects  of  the  tragedy.  "I'll  mind  Campany's  Hatch  while 
you're  a-gone,  and  see  after  the  kid  .  .  .  and  Mabel.  .  .  . 
Reckon  you'll  be  back  in  time  fur  the  spring  sowings.  ,  .  ." 

His  voice  trailed  off  helplessly — Bob  seemed  so  far  off,  in 
a  hell  beyond  his  reach.     Clem  could  do  nothing  for  him — 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  249 

even  if  he  performed  the  highly  improbable  and  kept  his  home 
together,  it  would  not  really  matter  to  Bob. 

"Doan't  look  at  me  lik  that,"  he  said  hoarsely. 

"I  were  wondering  if  you'd  do  summat  fur  me." 

"Surelye.    I'll  stick  by  you,  as  I've  said." 

"Wull  you  write  a  letter  to  Mus'  Beeman  at  Goudhurst, 
and  ask  him  to  come  and  see  me?  Maybe,  sinst  he's  a  min- 
ister of  the  Gospel  they'll  let  him  come.  ...  I  want  to  spik 
to  him  .  .  .  thur's  just  a  chanst  as  he  can  show  me  light  .  ,  . 
you  mun  do  it,  Clem." 

"I'll  do  it,  surelye.  But— but,  Bob,  d'you  think  Mus' 
Beeman's  lik  to  be  any  comfort  to  you?  Reckon  he  maade 
you  tedious  miserable  a  year  agone." 

"I  mun  see  him — he's  a  man  of  God,  and  he  has  God's 
ward  in  him.    Promise  you'll  ask  him,  Clem." 

"I've  promised.  But  ...  old  Bob  ...  it  justabout  breaks 
my  heart  seeing  you  vrother  over  these  things,  when  you've 
such  a  lot  to  put  up  wud  besides.  Maybe  it  wurn't  right  and 
praaper  fur  you  to  kiss  Hannah,  but  reckon  it  wurn't  much 
— no  more'n  many  a  man  ud  do,  and  has  done,  I  guess.  And 
as  fur  bashing  Darius — there's  no  cause  fur  you  to  be  so  upset 
and  low  over  having  done  wot  wur  no  more'n  he  desarved." 

"You  doan't  understand,"  said  Bob.  "I  haven't  sinned  as 
the  heathen  which  know  not  God — but  I've  sinned  agaunst 
the  light.  I'm  one  of  them  of  whom  it  says  'it  wur  impossible 
to  renew  them  agaun  unto  repentance.'  Fur  one  morsel  of 
meat  I've  sold  my  birthright,  and  now  I  am  rejected.  I  tell 
you  agaun — 'there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice  fur  sins.'  " 

"I  can't  miiake  out  your  doctrine.  Bob,  and  thur's  no  sense 
pretending  that  I  do." 

"You'll  have  to  go  in  two  more  minutes,"  said  the  police 
constable. 

"Give  a  message  from  me  to  Mabel,"  said  Bob;  "say  as  I 
ask  her  pardon,  and  I  desarve  as  she  never  forgives  me;  but 
I  hope  she  will  fur  her  own  sake." 

"Yes — I'll  tell  her.  Polly  and  I  are  having  the  kid  wud 
us." 


250  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Mabel's  going  away,  then?" 

Clem  flushed  at  his  mistake. 

"Fur  a  bit — but  never  fear,  we'lFTiave  her  back  by  the 
time  you  come." 

"Doan't  you  go  pressing  her.  I've  maade  her  mighty  miser- 
able, wot  wud  one  thing  and  another  .  .  .  it'll  only  be  sense 
of  her  to  kip  away.  And  tell  Jim  and  Mary,  too,  as  I'm  sorry 
.  .  .  and  mother.  .  .  .  I've  brung  'em  all  a  tedious  lot  of 
trouble." 

"Doan't  spik  of  it,  Bob." 

"And  you,  young  'un — I'm  maaking  you  unhappy." 

"Oh,  no,  no — naun — doan't  you  vrother." 

"Good-bye,  then." 

"Good-bye." 

§    20 

Clem  left  Headcorn  forlornly  in  the  afternoon.  His  trouble 
had  brought  him  to  the  actual  pitch  of  not  wanting  any  dinner, 
and  he  moped  miserably  about  the  town  till  it  was  time  for 
the  train  to  go.  His  only  comfort  came  from  a  few  minutes' 
conversation  with  a  large  policeman  in  the  station  road.  The 
policeman  had  seen  Clem  in  court  and  knew  he  was  the 
brother  of  the  wild-looking  preacher  who  had  been  run  in 
for  assault,  and  had  been  given  a  sentence  which  the  police, 
who  knew  the  gipsies,  thought  remarkably  hard  and  unde- 
served. 

"They're  a  nasty  lot,"  he  said  to  Clem,  "and  I  know  there 
was  a  sight  more  to  that  business  than  came  out  in  court. 
Your  brother  was  naturally  a  bit  upset,  having  his  character 
to  lose,  and  wouldn't  take  the  matter  up  as  he  should  have 
done.  There's  a  strong  notion  as  that  Ripley's  got  money  out 
of  chaps  for  trying  to  get  off  with  his  wife.  These  gipsy 
women,  they'd  never  look  at  any  man  but  their  husband,  but 
they'll  make  a  pretence  if  he  tells  them,  just  as  one  of  our 
women  who's  bad  enough  ull  make  more'n  a  pretence.  But 
the  gipsy  bullies  are  cleverer  than  oum.  The  wife  screams, 
and  in  they  pop — having  been  listening  outside — and  kick  up 
a  row,  and  then  offer  to  hold  their  tongue  for  five  quid.    We 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  251 

had  a  chap  up  for  that  sort  of  thing  last  year — a  man  called 
Devenden  from  the  Quarter  country — but  it  couldn't  be  proved 
against  him,  and  he  got  off." 

"Do  you  think  that's  how  it  happened  wud  Bob?" 

"I  dunno — maybe.  It  struck  me  as  likely,  seeing  as  Ripley 
ud  have  known  he  had  a  character  to  lose,  and  him  having 
been  friendly  with  Mrs.  Ripley  once.  I'm  sorry  we  can't 
prove  it.  However,  the  little  blighter  didn't  get  off.  He  was 
run  in  as  he  was  coming  out  of  court.  The  police  at  Chi- 
chester have  been  after  him,  and,  as  soon  as  they  heard  we'd 
got  our  hand  on  him,  so  to  say,  they  phoned  over  about  it, 
and  it'll  be  Mr.  Darius  who'll  stand  in  the  dock  to-morrow." 

"Wot  fur?" 

"The  usual— dawg-stealing;  and  his  wife  and  old  Mrs. 
Lovell  ull  git  it  too,  for  fencing — or  receiving  stolen  goods." 

"I  wish  they  cud  hang  the  lot,"  said  Clem,  delivering  him- 
self of  the  most  vindictive  sentiment  he  had  expressed  in  his 
life. 

"You  must  look  at  it  this  way — them  gipsies  is  like  ani- 
mals, and  you  can't  hold  them  responsible  for  their  doings  as 
you  would  ordinary'  human  beings.  I've  seen  a  good  deal  of 
'em,  there  being  plenty  in  these  parts,  and  always  in  court 
for  something  or  other.  There  ought  to  be  some  place  Vv^here 
they  could  be  put  away  all  together,  so  as  not  to  do  us  any 
harm.  Ordinary  folk  can't  reckon  with  'em,  as  their  minds 
work  so  different  from  ours — so  we're  always  being  had.  I'm 
sorry  your  brother  was  had — I  know  what  that  sort  of  trouble 
means  in  a  decent  family,  and  he  looked  a  stout  chap  too, 
though  maybe  not  quite  right  here,  was  he?"  and  the  police- 
man touched  his  forehead. 

"He  took  to  religion  a  bit  queer,  but  he  wur  a  good  feller, 
though  you  mayn't  think  it." 

"And  why  shouldn't  I  think  it?  I  know  as  even  a  good 
feller  often  can't  help  looking  at  a  pretty  girl.  Not  that  Mrs. 
Ripley  was  a  pretty  girl.  Good  Lord!  She  wasn't  the  sort 
as  ud  get  me  off  the  narrer  path  of  virtue." 

"He  used  to  care  for  her  years  ago  before  she  married — he 
cared  very  much." 


252  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Pore  chap.    Is  he  a  married  man  himself,  by  the  way?" 

Clem  nodded. 

"And  she'll  take  it  hard,  I  reckon.  Women  always  do  .  .  . 
however,  he'll  have  got  his  religion  to  comfort  him.  And 
reckon  six  months  in  quod  won't  do  him  any  harm — if  only 
you  can  persuade  him  not  to  take  it  to  heart  too  much — the 
disgrace,  I  mean.  Look  here,  you  tell  him  there's  something  us 
police  knows  better  than  the  chaps  that  are  in  prison,  and 
that's  the  chaps  that  ought  to  be  and  aren't.  These  laws  of 
our'n  .  .  .  they  was  made  to  get  scoundrels  off.  Oh,  the 
villains  I've  had  my  hands  on  and  then  had  to  let  go  on  account 
of  these  laws  of  our'n  which  was  made  to  protect  the  weak 
and  helpless " 

The  policeman  digressed  into  reminiscences  and  reflections 
— in  the  midst  of  which  Clem  had  to  leave  him  to  catch  his 
train.  He  was  sorry,  for  he  found  him  comforting;  but  he 
must  not  wait — having  heard  the  worst  that  had  happened  at 
Headcorn,  he  must  now  go  and  hear  the  worst  that  had  hap- 
pened at  Campany's  Hatch.  The  little  train — a  string  of 
ancient  South-Eastem  coaches  hooked  to  a  toy  engine — heaved 
itself  out  of  the  station,  with  Clem  crouched  miserably  in  the 
corner  of  a  third-class  smoker,  chewing  an  unlighted  woodbine. 

He  reached  Bodiam  about  tea  time,  and  hurried  to  Cam- 
pany's Hatch.  Polly  saw  him  from  the  window,  and  when  he 
reached  the  house  he  found  her  standing  in  the  doorway  with 
the  baby  in  her  arms. 

"She's  gone,"  said  Polly. 

"He's  got  six  months,"  said  Clem. 

They  stood  staring  at  each  other  in  silence. 

"I  cudn't  kip  her,"  said  Polly  at  last.  "I  tried  to  maake  her 
stay  till  she'd  heard  fur  sartain  sure,  but  she  wudn't,  and 
now  I  aun't  sorry.     Six  months!   .  .  .  pore  soul!" 

"It's  hard,"  said  Clem;  "it's  tar'ble.  I've  a  feeling  as  she'll 
never  come  back." 

"We  mun  git  her  back  somehows.  It  ud  be  too  bad  fur 
him  to  come  hoame  and  find  her  a-gone.  .  .  .  Not  but  wot 
she  has  reason,  if  it's  true  about  him  and  Hannah." 

"It's  part  true,  anyways." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  253 

"Then  Mabel  woan't  never  come  back." 

Clem  said  nothing.  They  had  gone  into  the  kitchen,  and 
sat  facing  each  other  across  the  bare,  scrubbed  table, 

"A  gal  lik  Mabel  ull  never  live  wud  a  man  who's  bin  in 
jail,"  continued  Polly;  "and  she's  that  jealous  of  Hannah — 
you'd  think  as  she'd  go  off  her  head.  Oh,  maaster,  wot  maade 
him  do  it?" 

"He  stopped  two  nights  along  of  her  and  Darius  at  Cast- 
wisell,  and  reckon  it  all  got  too  much  fur  him  to  bear — he 
and  she  woir  left  aloan  together,  and  he  dud  but  taake  her  in 
his  arms." 

"Is  that  all?" 

"That's  all,  fur  she  struck  out,  and  Darius  caame  in,  and 
then  pore  Bob  went  fur  him,  being  mad  seemingly." 

Polly  wiped  the  tears  off  her  face. 

"It's  all  middling  sad,  Clem." 

"Middling  sad." 

"I  suppose  as  how  Bob's  loved  Hannah  all  this  time?" 

"That's  it,  I  reckon." 

"I  can't  blaame  him,  nuther,  when  I  think  as  how  it  ud 
have  bin  if  you  and  me  hadn't  bin  married  and  yit  had  loved 
each  other  just  lik  we  do  now.  .  .  ." 

Clem  nodded  gravely. 

"Sims  to  me  as  Bob's  life's  lik  a  green  apple  tree — he's 
picked  his  fruit  lik  other  men,  but  it's  bin  hard  and  sour 
instead  of  sweet.  Love  and  religion — they're  both  sweet  things, 
folks  say,  but  with  Bob  they've  bin  as  the  hard  green  apples." 

Polly  took  up  her  hat  which  was  hung  on  a  chair. 

"We  mun  be  gitting  back  hoame — I  sent  ward  to  Jim  as 
we'd  be  back  to-night." 

"What  about  Nat?    Has  Mabel  left  him  to  us?" 

"Yes — just  fur  a  time.     Her  father  doan't  care  fur  kids." 

"Nor  does  Mabel,  nuther." 

"Anyways,  I'm  glad  to  have  him.  I've  always  longed  to 
have  a  baby  in  the  house." 

Clem  pulled  her  to  him  with  a  fondling  arm,  and  together 
they  looked  down  at  Robert's  baby. 

"Oh,  maaster,  I  wish  he  wur  oum." 


254        •     GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"So  do  I,  both  fur  our  saakes,  and  fur  all  the  good  he's 
ever  lik  to  git  out  of  his  parents.    Howsumdever.  .  .  ." 

§    21 

During  the  next  six  months  Clem  was  busy  keeping  his 
promises  to  Robert.  He  even  wrote  to  Mr.  Beeman  and 
asked  him  to  go  and  see  him,  though  he  had  great  qualms 
as  to  what  the  result  of  such  a  visit  would  be.  He  wrote 
to  Bob  at  the  end  of  three  months,  as  he  understood  he 
was  allowed  to  do,  and  told  him  all  the  news  which  was  good. 
He  said  nothing  about  Mabel,  for  there  was  nothing  good  to 
say.  She  was  still  at  Bulverhythe,  defiant  and  broken,  keep- 
ing house  for  her  father,  and  going  two  or  three  evenings  a 
week  with  her  friend  Muriel  to  the  pictures,  where  she  found 
a  sort  of  consolation  in  watching  the  sorrows  of  the  film 
heroines  and  heroes.  Once  or  twice  she  came  over  to  see 
the  baby. 

"I  suppose  I'll  have  to  take  him  back  with  me  soon,"  she 
said,  "but  father  never  could  do  with  kids  in  the  house." 

Nothing  that  Polly  or  Clem  could  say  would  make  her 
change  her  mind  about  returning  to  Robert.  Her  face  would 
grow  hard  and  set  when  he  was  mentioned. 

*'I've  finished  with  him.  If  you  only  knew  what  I've  been 
through,  you  wouldn't  ask  me  to  go  back.  First  that  woman 
and  then  religion  and  then  that  woman  again.  And  now 
he's  in  jail,  and  everybody  knows  what  for  .  .  .  oh,  it's 
nearly  killed  me.  He's  messed  up  my  life — if  I  hadn't  mar- 
ried him  I  could  have  married  Stanley  Huggins  and  had  a  nice 
little  house  in  the  town.  But  he  would  marry  me — just  to 
help  him  forget  her.  .  .  .  And  now  here  I  am  married  and  no- 
body's wife,  for  I'll  never  live  with  him  again,  and  yet  he's  done 
nothing  that  I  can  divorce  him  for  .  .  .  except  break  my 
heart." 

It  was  just  like  Mabel  to  talk  about  divorce,  thought  Clem 
and  Polly,  just  as  it  was  like  her  to  send  telegrams.  How- 
ever, they  could  not  really  feel  set  against  her,  even  after 
what  she  had  said  about  Bob,  for  they  knew  that  it  was  true 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  255 

that  she  had  suffered,  and  the  fact  that  she  did  not  suffer 
graciously  did  not  make  her  suffering  any  less  dreadful. 

"Then,  Mabel,"  said  Polly,  "sinst  you  woan't  be  hoame 
when  Bob  comes,  and  sinst  your  faather  doan't  want  kids 
araound,  maybe  you'd  let  us  kip  baby  till  Bob  comes  back, 
just  to  give  him  a  bit  of  a  welcome." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  may  keep  him,  since  you're  kind  enough  to 
be  bothered  ^\•ith  him.  And  of  course  he's  Bob's  child — I 
can't  take  him  away  from  him.  If  Bob  wants  to  have  him  .  .  . 
he  gets  more  like  Bob  every  day." 

She  looked  almost  angrily  at  the  child,  who  was  crawling 
about  the  floor.  He  was  a  fine,  sturdy  little  fellow,  and  cer- 
tainly had  Bob's  high  colour  and  blue  eyes,  though  his  hair 
was  still  quite  fair.  Clem  and  Polly  adored  him  ridiculously 
— at  night  he  slept  between  them  as  if  he  was  their  owti  child, 
and  all  day  long  he  was  with  one  or  the  other  of  them,  re- 
cei\ang  a  love  and  notice  that  had  been  given  him  only  spas- 
modically by  his  real  parents.  They  told  themselves  that 
they  must  not  forget  that  he  was  not  theirs ;  they  taught  him  to 
say  "dada,"  so  that  he  might  welcome  back  his  father  when 
he  came,  but  at  present  he  would  shout  it  whenever  he  saw 
Clem,  which  produced  the  wrong  effect  entirely. 

About  a  fortnight  after  Robert  went  to  jail  Clem  and  Polly 
had  moved  into  Campany's  Hatch.  At  first  Clem  had  tried 
looking  after  the  place  from  Pookwell,  leaving  Podgam  in 
residence,  while  he  himself  tramped  over  every  morning;  but 
this  had  soon  proved  impossible,  and  early  in  October  they 
moved  into  the  bare  red  farmhouse  among  the  old  barns  by 
the  river.  Jim  engaged  a  new  hand  in  Clem's  absence — Bod- 
ingmares  was  now  thriving  more  prosperously  than  ever,  and 
he  had  a  hired  shepherd  and  a  hired  cowman  as  well  as  his 
brother  and  Pickdick.  But  Jim's  spiteful  destiny  decreed 
that  the  year  of  his  greatest  prosperity  should  also  be  the  year 
of  his  deepest  humiliation.  He  took  no  pride  in  his  rich  acres, 
nor  in  the  price  that  his  heifers  fetched  at  Battle  fair.  The 
heart  of  his  achievement  was  broken,  since  on  his  family  had 
fallen  the  blackest  taint  that  was  known  in  the  Rother  vil- 
lages— the  taint  of  prison. 


256  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

He  was  anxious  that  Bob  should  not  come  back  to  the  dis- 
trict, that  on  his  return  from  prison  he  should  go  to  some  new 
place  where  his  relations  shouldn't  "git  the  splash  of  his 
muck." 

"It  ud  be  easy  enough  to  sell  wot's  left  of  the  lease  of 
Campany's  Hatch,  and  the  live  and  dead  stock  should  ought  to 
bring  in  a  good  penny.  Sinst  you're  writing,  Clem,  you  might 
say  as  it  ud  be  a  praaper  thing  to  do.  It's  the  only  chanst  of 
our  being  able  to  hold  up  our  heads  agaun." 

But  Clem  refused  to  say  anything  of  the  kind.  He  did  not 
want  his  brother  to  think  that  his  world  was  crumbling  to  bits 
in  his  absence.  If  Bob  had  lost  his  wife  he  might  as  well  keep 
his  farm,  and  anyhow  he  was  not  to  know  that  his  relations 
— or  some  of  them — did  not  want  to  see  him  again.  So  he 
stuck  loyally  to  Campany's  Hatch,  doing  the  best  he  could 
for  its  rather  seedy  acres,  trying  hard  to  accustom  himself  to 
the  shoddy  new  house,  which  seemed  so  bare  and  unhomely 
after  the  low  rafters  and  sweet-smelling  walls  of  Pookwell. 

But  shortly  after  the  New  Year  Robert  himself  relieved 
him  of  his  charge,  for  he  wrote  to  Clement  then — his  only 
letter.  It  was  not  much  of  a  letter;  it  contained  no  news 
of  himself,  and  was  made  up  chiefly  of  bald  statements 
of  things  he  wanted  done  before  he  came  back.  One  of  these 
was  to  get  rid  of  Campany's  Hatch — "but  ask  Mabel  first,  but 
I  know  she  will  not  care."  He  seemed  to  accept  quite  definitely 
the  idea  that  Mabel  would  never  live  with  hira  again,  and 
Clem  wondered  if  she  had  written  to  him,  or  whether  he 
merely  went  by  his  knowledge  of  her  character.  He  seemed 
anxious  that  she  should  not  be  forced  or  persuaded  in  any 
way:  "Let  her  do  what  she  likes  about  me.  It  is  her  turn 
now." 

So  Clem  and  Jim  made  arrangements  with  a  firm  of  auction- 
eers for  the  selling  up  of  Bob's  stock  and  tools  and  furniture, 
Mabel  was  asked  if  she  would  like  to  keep  any  of  the  last, 
but  she  said  she  would  rather  not.  The  walnut  sideboard, 
which  had  nearly  filled  the  little  dining-room,  and  the  bedstead 
with  brass  knobs  which  had  done  the  same  for  the  bedroom,  no 
longer  gave  her  any  housewifely  thrill.     She  did  not  want 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  257 

furniture  of  her  own  now  that  she  lived  with  her  father,  and 
she  thought  it  better  to  live  with  him  in  her  present  ambiguous 
position.  Everything  to  do  with  Campany's  Hatch  seemed 
bound  up  with  unhappy  memories — she  did  not  want  to  see  a 
stick  of  it  again. 

So  Clem  spent  a  depressing  day  while  the  auctioneer,  with 
a  mixed  crowd  at  his  heels,  went  up  and  down  and  in  and  out 
of  Campany's  Hatch,  knocking  down  fowls  and  pigs  and  tools 
and  furniture  to  various  farmers  and  householders  of  the 
neighbourhood  and  a  few  dealers  from  village  furniture  stores. 
All  that  night  the  younger  brother's  dreams  rang  with  the 
auctioneer's  unending  patter — ''ten  and  six  I'm  bid — eleven 
shillings  shall  I  make  it? — ten  and  six  I'm  bid — ten  and  six 
once — ten  and  six  twice — ten  and  six  for  the  third  and  last 
time — Gone!"  The  sale  realized  a  fair  sum — nothing  much, 
but  enough,  with  the  disposal  of  the  lease,  to  set  Bob  up  very 
hum.bly  in  a  new  district  where  he  could  make  a  fresh  start. 

In  spite  of  the  way  he  had  stuck  to  the  farm  while  he  thought 
there  was  a  chance  of  his  brother's  wanting  it,  Clem  saw  the 
wisdom  of  this  abandonment.  Opinion  against  Robert  in  the 
neighbourhood  was  very  strong.  Those  who  had  laughed  at 
him  and  those  who  had  been  outraged  by  him  and  those  who 
had  said  "there  mun  be  something  in  it"  were  all  banded  to- 
gether against  him  now.  Popular  opinion  condemned  him  as 
a  ranting  hypocrite,  who  had  been  properly  exposed  at  last, 
and  everybody  "had  said  it  all  along." 

"The  long  and  the  short  of  it  is,"  said  Shovell  of  Mount- 
pumps,  "that  you  can't  gather  grapes  off  thorns  or  figs  off 
thistles,  nor  the  gospel  off  Bob  Fuller,  nuther." 

"He  wur  black,"  said  Pepper  of  Weights,  "and  he'd  have 
us  call  him  white — but  the  whitewash  is  all  off  now." 

"Mark  my  wards,"  said  Pont  of  Udiam,  "as  when  he  gits 
out  of  jail  he'll  be  back  in  the  pubs  agaun." 

"He's  a  low,  tedious,  lousy  lot,"  said  Pepper,  "and  it's  the 
only  one  good  thing  them  gipsies  have  done — a-showing  of 
him  up." 

Certainly  Bob  would  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it  if  he 
had  come  back  to  hold  his  own  by  the  Bodiam  river.     He 


258  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

showed  his  sense  in  wanting  to  cut  adrift.  If  only  Mabel 
could  have  gone  with  him  and  helped  him  start  his  life  again. 
.  .  .  But  that  was  his  own  fault,  and  probably  he  could 
never  be  happy  with  her  again  any  more  than  she  could  be 
happy  with  him.  Clem  wrote  and  asked  his  brother  to 
come  to  him  and  Polly  at  Pookwell  when  he  left  Maidstone. 
Then  they  could  look  round  them  and  think  a  bit — anyways, 
Bob  would  not  feel  so  strange  coming  to  a  place  he  knew. 


§    22 

When  in  the  swale  of  a  March  day  Clem  drove  to  the  station 
to  meet  Robert,  he  realized  for  the  first  time  that  he  was  a 
little  afraid  of  his  brother.  For  six  months  Bob  had  been  shut 
out  of  his  life,  shut  away  into  a  new  set  of  experiences.  What 
had  they  done  to  him?  It  was  impossible  to  tell,  for  he  had  had 
no  news  except  that  inexpressibly  bald  letter.  But  Clem  could 
guess  a  little  of  what  Bob  had  been  suffering  in  the  Kentish 
prison  town.  It  would  not  have  been  so  much  the  pains  and 
humiliations  of  imprisonment;  Bob  was  not  a  sensitive  sub- 
ject, either  in  mind  or  body,  and  though  he  might  have  pined 
a  bit  for  the  fresh  air,  ought  to  have  come  through  six  months' 
hard  labour  pretty  well.  Neither,  Clem  felt  instinctively,  would 
his  misery  concentrate  on  the  loss  of  his  home,  nor  on  the  fact 
that  he  had  lost  his  brief  reputation  and  would  not  be  able  to 
preach  again — at  least,  not  for  many  years.  The  heart  of  bit- 
terness seemed  to  lie  in  those  words  his  brother  had  spoken  to 
him  at  Headcorn,  "There  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice  for  sins." 
Robert  had  been  convinced  of  his  eternal  damnation.  He  had 
lost  the  God  he  had  loved  and  served  so  gratefully,  and  there 
remained  for  him  nothing  but  a  fiery  looking  forward  to  judg- 
ment. During  those  months  in  prison,  how  would  that  idea 
have  worked?  Would  Mr.  Beeman  have  done  anything  to  re- 
move it?  Would  his  heart  have  purged  itself  of  fear?  Or 
would  the  fear  have  broken  his  heart?  Clem  did  not  know — 
that  was  why  he  was  afraid. 

There  were  only  a  few  people  on  Salehurst  Station  when  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  259 

little  Rother  Valley  train  drew  in.  Bob  came  out  of  a  coach 
at  the  back,  and  walked  towards  Clem  and  shook  hands  with- 
out a  word.  What  Clem  noticed  most  about  his  brother  was 
that  he  looked  extraordinarily  clean  and  tidy.  His  clothes 
smelled  a  little  of  some  fumigation,  but  they  were  carefully 
brushed. 

"Hallo,"  said  Clem.     "How  are  you?" 

"Hallo,"  said  Bob. 

"I've  got  the  trap  wud  Spongey.  You'll  be  pleased  to  come 
to  ^ookwell,  Bob?" 

"Surelye." 

"We've  got  a  new  bed  and  a  washbowl  and  some  hooks  in 
the  other  upstairs  room.  And  we've  got  the  baby  too,  as  I 
toald  you  when  I  wrote." 

"That's  vahant,"  said  Bob. 

Clem  waited  for  him  to  inquire  after  Mabel,  but  he  did  not, 
so  to  cover  up  an  awkward  silence,  the  younger  brother  said: 

"We've  got  bacon  fur  supper  wud  mashed  potatoes." 

"That's  good." 

"And  mother  said  as  she'd  look  in  fur  a  bit  afterwards." 

"She  shudn't  ought  to  give  herself  the  trouble;  I'll  go 
araound  and  see  her." 

"Oh,  she  liks  coming  to  us." 

They  beguiled  the  drive  to  Bodingmares  with  suchlike  careful 
conversation.  It  struck  Clem  that  his  brother  did  not  look  so 
shattered  as  he  expected,  and  he  felt  a  little  cheered  and  re- 
assured. It  was  difficult  to  read  the  look  in  Robert's  eyes,  but 
anyhow  it  was  not  that  desperate,  stricken  look  he  had  seen  at 
Headcorn.  .  .  .  Perhaps  Bob  was  a  little  thinner  than  he 
used  to  be;  that  was  what  made  those  queer  lines  on  his  face, 
from  nose  to  mouth,  stand  out  so  remarkably.  Clem  had  not 
noticed  them  so  much  at  first,  but  now  when  the  yellow,  watery 
sunset  came  streaming  over  the  fields,  with  a  few  rods  of  yel- 
low rain  slanting  across  the  light,  Bob's  face  suddenly  showed 
all  lined  and  aged.  There  were  lines  at  his  mouth  and  eyes 
and  between  his  brows  .  .  .  the  skin  on  the  cheeks  was  quite 
fresh  and  firm,  it  had  not  wrinkled;  those  lines  had  just  dug 
and  scored  themselves  across  his  youth.  .  .  .  Clem  was  glad 


26o  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

when  the  sun  dipped  behind  the  hedge  and  Bob's  face  became 
once  more  just  a  rather  young  and  rather  wooden  one. 

Polly  was  waiting  for  them  at  Pookwell  with  the  baby  in  her 
arms. 

"Here's  dada,"  she  said,  when  the  trap  drew  up  at  the  gate, 
and  running  down  the  path,  she  bundled  Nat  into  Robert's 
embrace  before  he  could  hold  out  his  arms  to  Clem, 

"He's  growed,"  said  Bob. 

"Well,  wot  else  shud  he  do  in  six  months?  He's  a  valiant 
child,  and  weighs  more'n  two  stun.  Clem  put  him  on  wud  the 
weights  this  marnun." 

Young  Nat  gave  a  wriggle  in  the  unaccustomed  arms,  and 
Bob  handed  him  back  to  Polly  just  before  he  began  to  howl. 

"He'll  git  used  to  you  in  a  day  or  two;  he  can't  help  it  just 
at  first.  They  doan't  remember  at  that  age.  As  soon  as  he's 
more  accustomed  like,  you  can  have  him  to  sleep  along*  of  you 
at  nights,  but  he  mun  stay  wud  us  for  a  whiles  yet,  or  he'd 
holler  and  kip  you  awaake." 

Polly  was  more  free  in  her  talk  than  Clem,  whose  attitude 
towards  his  brother  was  rather  that  of  a  careful  housewife  to- 
wards a  cracked  plate.  Polly  even  spoke  of  Mabel  while  they 
were  at  supper,  just  mentioning  her  by  name.  But  Robert 
showed  no  emotion.  He  ate  his  supper  quietly,  without  much 
talk,  eating  what  he  was  given,  but  by  no  means  showing  the 
zest  and  thrill  that  bacon  and  mashed  potatoes  should  have 
aroused  in  his  breast.  Afterwards  he  helped  Polly  clear  away 
and  wash  up  the  things.  He  seemed  humble  and  grateful  in 
his  attitude  towards  her  and  Clem,  but  he  said  no  more  about 
it  than  about  anything  else. 

Mrs.  Wheelsgate  arrived  soon  after  eight,  and  they  all  sat 
round  the  fire,  trying  to  talk  of  indifferent  matters.  At  first 
Elizabeth  had  been  inclined  to  sentiment;  she  had  cried  a  bit 
when  she  kissed  Robert. 

"Now,  Mother,  doan't  fret  fur  me,"  he  said. 

"But  you're  looking  thinner;  your  cloathes  hang  loose." 

"I  weigh  a  paound  more'n  when  I  went  into  jail." 

She  said  no  more,  but  dropped  her  hands  from  his  shoul- 
ders with  a  bev/ildered  gesture.    Then  they  pulled  their  chairs 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  261 

in  close  to  the  fire,  for  the  March  wind  was  beating  round 
the  house;  the  weather  provided  them  with  some  conversation 
on  the  price  of  coal  and  the  underwood  that  Dunk  was  cutting 
over  at  Shoyswell.  Then  Polly  talked  about  the  baby,  and  told 
his  grandmamma  of  his  latest  doings.  She  managed  her  share 
of  the  proceedings  best;  Clem  was  obviously  embarrassed,  and 
Mrs.  \\Tieelsgate  looked  bewildered  and  lost.  The  strain  v;as 
ended  only  by  the  party  breaking  up  for  the  night. 

Clem  walked  home  with  his  mother,  and  when  he  came  back 
found  Polly  just  lighting  her  candle  for  bed.  Robert  still  sat 
by  the  fire,  and  when  Polly  went  out  of  the  room,  he  suddenly 
seemed  to  remember  something,  and  getting  clumsily  to  his 
feet,  he  went  and  opened  the  door  for  her.  Polly,  unaccus- 
tomed to  gallantry,  made  her  first  blunder: 

"Oh,  Bob,  that's  wot  Mabel  lamed  you,  aun't  it?" 

"Surelye,"  said  Bob  in  an  extinguished  voice,  going  back  to 
his  seat. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  Clem  was  wakened  by  a  peculiar 
sound.  For  a  moment  he  lay  listening;  it  came  from  the  next 
room,  and  had  a  curious  monotony  about  it,  so  that  at  first 
he  scarcely  recognized  it  for  the  sound  of  sobbing.  But  as  his 
sense  cleared,  he  knew.  Robert's  bed  was  close  up  against  the 
wall;  he  probably  did  not  realize  that  only  a  foot  of  lath  and 
plaster  divided  him  from  Clem  and  Polly. 

Soon  Polly  woke  up  and  heard  it  too. 

"Oh,  maaster,  wot's  that?" 

"It's  Bob." 

"Maaking  that  row;  it  can't  be." 

She  listened  a  moment,  then  whimpered  a  little  herself. 

"Oh,  Clem,  the  pore  soul;  I  can't  bear  it.  You  mun  go  to 
him." 

Clem  slid  out  of  bed,  then  changed  his  mind. 

"No,  I  woan't  go.    I  know  he'd  sooner  I  dudn't." 

"But  you  can't  let  him  grieve  lik  that.  Go  and  taake  baby 
to  him." 

"No,  missus,  you  can't  understand.  We  wurn't  never  meant 
to  hear  that.    He  doan't  think  as  we're  just  by  the  wall." 

He  got  back  into  bed,  and  soon  afterwards  the  sobbing 


262  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

ceased.     Perhaps  Bob  had  heard  them  talking,  though  they 
had  spoken  carefully  in  whispers  for  fear  of  waking  the  boy. 


§  23 

The  next  two  or  three  days  passed  uneventfully.  There  was 
no  more  sobbing  at  night.  During  the  day  Robert  worked 
hard,  both  in  the  house,  where  Mabel  had  taught  him  to  be 
handy,  and  in  the  fields,  where  he  helped  Clem.  He  seemed  to 
like  work — to  find  some  sort  of  relief  in  it.  At  first  Jim  did 
not  like  seeing  him  about  his  land,  or  rather  he  did  not  like 
other  people  seeing  him  there.  He  tried  to  make  Clem  per- 
suade Robert  to  go  away 

"He  mun  maake  a  fresh  start  whur  the  foalkses  doan't  know 
what  he  is.  If  he  aun't  got  enough  tin  I  doan't  mind  helping 
him  a  bit." 

"If  he  goes,  Polly  and  I  goes  too,"  said  Clem. 

"Now,  doan't  be  a  gurt  owl,"  said  Jim,  who  could  never 
have  got  another  man  to  do  Clem's  work  for  Clem's  wages. 

"I  aun't  going  to  let  Bob  go  off  by  himself  the  way  he  is 
now." 

"Wot  way?  He's  right  enough.  He  shows  it  less  than 
some  ud  think  praaper." 

"I  know  better'n  you  wot  he  feels,  and  I  tell  you  as  he  aun't 
fit  to  go  off  aloan  by  himself.  I'm  willing  to  go  wud  him  any- 
wheres, and  so's  Polly." 

"Well,  I'd  sooner  he  stayed  than  you  went.  After  all,  he 
doan't  do  much  harm  araound  here." 

"Harm!     He  does  a  man-and-half's  wark,  surelye." 

"That's  new  fur  him,  anyways.  Reckon  they  lamed  him  to 
wark  in  prison." 

Clem  said  nothing,  and  Jim,  fearing  that  he  had  offended 
him — for  he  was  that  prize  among  workmen,  a  man  who  is  at 
once  valuable  and  unconscious  of  his  value — made  a  propitia- 
tory surrender. 

"Well,  tell  him.  he  can  stay — and  wark  fur  me  fur  twenty 
shillun  a  week  and  his  board,  wud  you." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  263 

"I'll  tell  him,"  said  Clem,  "and  I'll  tell  him,  too,  as  he  can  go 
if  he  likes." 

But  Robert  much  preferred  to  stay.  He  clung  to  Clem  and 
Polly  as  his  only  friends,  and  at  the  same  time  he  saw  the 
unkindness  of  pulling  them  up  by  the  roots  and  transplanting 
them  into  some  new  district.  As  for  himself,  all  places  were 
alike.  Ke  cared  nothing  for  the  eyes  coldly  staring  or  the 
eyes  turned  away  that  he  met  on  the  few  occasions  he  went 
out  on  the  road.  He  knew  that  Clem  felt  no  embarrassment 
or  shame  on  his  account,  and  as  for  Jim,  he  could  make  up  to 
Jim  by  hard  work  and  loyal  service  for  the  disgrace  he  brought 
him;  after  all,  he  need  not  go  much  afield,  or  meet  anyone  to 
whom  he  would  be  an  offence. 

So  it  was  settled  that  Robert  was  to  stop  at  Bodingmares,  for 
the  present  anyway.  Clem  and  Polly  experienced  much  secret 
relief,  for  though  they  would  willingly  have  gone  with  him  into 
furrin  parts,  they  loved  their  little  house  and  their  work  on 
Jim's  farm,  and  would  have  felt  forlorn  indeed  in  new  sur- 
roundings. As  for  Jim,  once  more  he  had  taken  Fate's  trick 
with  a  noble  action.  He  found  that  his  forgiveness  of  Robert 
— for  such  it  came  to — had  done  more  to  wipe  out  his  disgrace 
than  any  amount  of  righteous  indignation.  His  action  in  re- 
ceiving Robert  back  as  a  worker  into  his  fields  was  applauded 
throughout  the  parishes  of  Salehurst  and  High  Tilt.  Mr.  Vine 
brought  a  delicately  veiled  reference  to  it  into  his  sermon  at 
the  Throws  Chapel,  and  every  bar  in  two  villages  declared 
that  Jim  Fuller  of  Bodingmares  was  a  decent  chap. 

Robert  was  appropriately  grateful,  and  showed  his  gratitude 
by  never  going  near  the  homestead  or  presuming  that  his  tolera- 
tion as  a  hired  servant  included  his  toleration  as  a  son  of  the 
house.  But  this  avoidance  was  partly  due  to  his  fear  of  Mary. 
His  memories  of  her  tongue  of  old  times  made  him  disinclined  to 
meet  her  now.  However,  it  was  impossible  that  he  should  be 
a  regular  worker  on  the  farm  and  never  see  her. 

One  day  he  was  so  thirsty  that  he  felt  he  must  go  to  the 
house  and  ask  for  a  drink.  Probably  only  a  servant  would  be 
there. 

But  when  he  knocked  the  door  was  opened  by  Mary. 


264  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Hallo!"  she  said.    "So  there  you  are!     Wot  do  you  want?" 

"I'm  thirsty,"  Robert  mumbled  sheepishly. 

Mary  looked  at  him  in  silence  for  a  moment,  opened  her 
mouth  to  say  something,  and  then  thought  better  of  it. 

"Which  ull  you  have — beer  or  water?"  she  asked  instead. 

"Water,  please." 

"So  you  haven't  got  over  that?  I'd  a-thought  you^d  have 
started  a  new  sort  of  religion  after  all  this." 

Robert  said  nothing. 

"If  I  wur  you,"  said  his  sister,  "I'd  taake  a  warning  and 
git  shut  of  all  this  teetotal  rubbish.  When  the  fowls  doan't 
lay  after  Molassine  wot  I  do  aun't  to  give  thsm  more  Molas- 
sine  but  to  maake  a  chaange  and  try  Thorley's.  That's  wot 
you  shud  ought  to  do  wud  them  notions  of  yourn.  The  first 
lot  dudn't,  so  to  spik,  maake  you  lay,  so  you  mun  try  another 
kind.    D'you  mark  my  wards?" 

"Surelye." 

Robert  was  turning  away. 

"Well,  sinst  you've  come  for  a  drink  of  water,  thur  aun't 
much  sense  in  your  going  off  wudout  it.  Come  into  the  scullery 
and  I'll  find  you  a  cup." 

Not  long  after  that,  when  the  hop-spraying  kept  Clem  and 
Robert  and  Pickdick  late  in  the  river  garden,  Jim  asked  them 
all  to  come  into  the  house  for  a  bit  of  supper.  Bob  saw  that 
he  was  to  be  tolerated  under  the  family  roof,  but  he  did  not 
abuse  the  toleration.  He  never  went  near  Bodingmares  unless 
he  was  asked,  and  even  then  he  occasionally  refused.  He  pre- 
ferred keeping  close  to  Pookwell,  and  going  to  see  his  mother 
about  once  a  week  at  Marsh  Quarter. 

Clem  and  Polly  worked  hard  to  make  him  happy.  They 
were  ashamed  of  Jim  and  Mary,  whose  words  and  faces  made 
impossible  what  their  actions  allowed,  they  were  ashamed  of 
Mabel,  who  neither  came  nor  wrote,  they  were  ashamed  of  the 
respectable  farmers  of  the  neighbourhood,  yeomen  and  tenants, 
who  would  give  poor  Robert  neither  recognition  nor  fellow- 
ship. Not  that  he  seemed  to  want  either,  but  Polly  had  a  deep 
conviction  that  a  little  society  would  be  good  for  him,  and 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  265 

Clem  would  have  liked  to  take  him  with  him  to  market  and  see 
if  he  could  get  back  any  of  his  interest  in  the  movements  and 
prices  of  stock. 

Robert  seemed  grateful  for  their  efforts.  He  was  always 
gentle  and  soft  spoken  now.  He  praised  Polly's  cooking  when 
he  saw  that  he  was  expected  to  do  so,  he  was  invariably 
ready  to  help  her  in  the  house,  chopping  wood,  washing  plates, 
carrying  coal,  doing  all  the  odd,  dirty  jobs  that  it  had  never 
occurred  to  Clem  to  do.  Polly  "did  not  know  herself,"  as  she 
put  it.  As  for  Clem,  he  found  his  brother  invaluable;  he  was 
greedy  for  work,  and  would  have  liked  to  fill  his  whole  day 
with  it.  Every  morning,  before  they  were  up,  they  would  hear 
him  coming  down  to  light  the  kitchen  fire.  He  had  his  baby 
with  him  at  nights  now;  the  child  had  taken  to  him  at  last, 
but  it  had  required  a  lot  of  persuasion.  Little  Nat  had  found 
something  terrifying  in  this  big,  strong,  sad  father,  who  never 
laughed  or  sang  to  him  like  his  other  father,  who  never  threw 
him  in  the  air  and  caught  him  again,  and  who  sometimes  held 
him  so  clumsily  and  closely. 

Clem  and  Polly  understood  the  baby's  feelings.  Sometimes 
they  could  not  help  being  scared  of  Bob.  He  was  so  different, 
he  was  so  utterly  unlike  the  swaggering,  rather  villainous  Bob 
of  the  old  days;  he  was  so  unlike  the  sullen,  obstinate  Bob  who 
had  married  Mabel,  or  the  exalted,  apocalyptic  Bob  who  had 
preached  the  Gospel  in  the  'dens  of  Kent.  This  silent,  gentle, 
hard-working,  humble  creature  was  a  stranger  to  the  brother 
who  had  known  him  all  his  life.  He  could  not  think  that  this 
was  the  same  Robert  who  used  to  brag  about  his  drinks  and 
his  bets  in  the  big  low  bedroom  at  Bodingmares.  .  .  .  What 
could  have  changed  him?  It  seemed  to  Clem  that  he  must 
have  been  through  some  terrible  new  experience.  .  .  .  He  was 
like  an  extinguished  lamp. 

Once  or  twice  the  younger  brother  tried  to  win  his  confi- 
dence, but  he  bungled  the  matter,  chiefly  through  his  own  fear. 
They  discussed  the  future,  the  improbability  of  Mabel's  re- 
turn, Bob's  financial  position,  the  care  of  the  child.  .  .  .  But 
Clem  knew  that  his  brother's  tragedy  lay  in  none  of  these 


266  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

things.  He  knew  now  that  he  was  living,  working,  talking, 
sharing  his  daily  life,  with  a  man  in  despair,  whose  own  life 
was  nothing  but  an  extinguished  lamp. 

"Git  him  to  talk  to  you,  Clem,"  said  Polly,  anxious  for 
Clem's  sake  as  well  as  Bob's,  for  Clem  was  beginning  to  have 
sometimes  a  look  very  like  Robert's  in  his  eyes. 

Young  Fuller  shook  his  head.  "He  woan't  talk,  he  woan't 
tell  me,  and  I  justabout  can't  ask  him." 

"But  it  ma3^  be  naun." 

"Does  it  look  lik  naun?" 

"It  may  be  only  some  notion  he's  got." 

"He's  got  a  notion  as  his  soul's  lost  fur  ever — that's  the 
notion  he's  got." 

"But  he  never  talks  about  religion  now." 

"That's  just  wot  tells  me,  surelye." 

§  24 

One  day,  when  Robert  had  been  back  with  them  about  three 
weeks,  Clem  took  him  to  Ticehurst  market.  He  thought 
that  the  change  would  do  him  good,  and  at  Ticehurst  they 
were  not  likely  to  meet  so  many  of  his  judges.  They  spent 
a  fairly  uneventful  morning  inspecting  sheep,  and  had  only 
one  unpleasant  encounter — with  Bream  of  Little  Moat.  Bream 
had  come  to  Ticehurst  to  sell  a  horse,  which  for  various  reasons 
he  thought  he  would  be  able  to  dispose  of  more  easily  among 
strangers.  He  was  therefore  annoyed  to  see  little  Clem  Fuller 
standing  there  with  his  stick  under  his  arm,  and  beside  him 
Clem's  notorious  brother  Bob,  whom  it  was  an  affront  to 
bring  among  decent  people. 

If  Bream  had  belonged  to  more  exalted  circles,  he  would 
have  conveyed  his  disgust  by  such  subtle  methods  as  failing 
to  see  Robert  though  he  stood  before  him,  but  his  circum- 
stances had  fitted  him  only  for  the  cruder  forms  of  self- 
expression. 

"Hallo,"  he  remarked,  "have  you  come  to  preach  us  a  sar- 
mon?" 

It  was  Clem  who  flushed  and  countered. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  267 

"Hallo,"  he  said,  "have  you  come  to  sell  us  a  spavined  hoss?" 

"Now  you  mind  your  wards,  or  you'll  land  yourself  whur 
your  holy  brother's  just  come  out  from." 

"I'll  land  you  in  the  muck  first."  And  Clem  clenched  a 
violent  fist. 

"Adone  do,  Clem,"  said  Bob;  "doan't  git  yourself  in  trouble. 
His  wards  doan't  matter  naun." 

"They're  true  wards,"  said  Bream. 

"Surelye,"  said  Bob. 

Bream  was  taken  aback  by  such  submission,  and  could  find 
no  suitable  retort  before  Bob  had  dragged  the  bristling  Clem 
away. 

"We  mun  go  hoame  now,"  he  said;  "thur's  naun  else  to  do 
now  we've  seen  the  tegs,  and  I  woan't  have  you  fighting  wud 
chaps  because  of  their  spikking  truth." 

"It  wum't  truth.  It  wur  just  low  sneers  as  any  decent  feller 
ud  be  ashaamed  on.    I'd  lik  to  smash  his  faace." 

"You  kip  cool,  youngster,"  said  Robert  in  a  voice  that  re- 
minded Clem  of  the  old  Bob. 

They  w^re  walking  home,  as  the  trap  was  wanted  for  other 
things  that  morning.  Neither  of  them  spoke  again  till  they 
were  out  of  the  village.    Then  Robert  said: 

"I  doan't  want  you  to  be  always  taaking  my  part  agaunst 
folks;  they're  mostly  right  in  wot  they  say." 

"They  aun't  right.    They're  just  a  dirty,  canting  lot." 

"No,  that  aun't  it  quite.  You  mun  put  yourself  in  their 
plaace  and  think.  I've  bin  thinking  myself,  and  I  see  now 
how  bad  it  must  all  have  looked.  Thur  wur  I,  racketing  about 
and  giving  scandal  all  ariiound.  Then  all  of  a  suddent  I  start 
preaching  and  saying  I'm  saaved  .  .  .  reckon  it  wur  middling 
decent  of  folks  not  to  call  me  a  hypocrite  straight  off,  as  only 
some  of  'em  did.  Then  they  hear  as  I'm  in  quod — that  I've 
nearly  killed  a  man  because  he  found  me  maaking  free  wud 
his  wife.  .  .  .  It's  only  natural  as  they  think  dirt  of  me  and 
say  as  I  wur  shamming  all  the  time." 

"But,  no  matter  wot  they  think,  they  shudn't  ought  to  spik 
so.    They  mun  let  you  aloan  after  all  you've  bin  through." 

"Their  wards  doan't  hurt  me.    I  tell  you,  young  'un,  I  care 


268  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

fur  naun.  Now  I've  lost  God,  wot  difference  d'you  think  it 
maakes  wot  I  lose  beside?" 

"But,  Bob,  you  doan't  mean  that  surelye?  You  haven't 
lost  God.  .  .  ." 

"If  I  haven't  lost  Him,  that's  because  I  never  had  Him." 

"But  that  aun't  true.  You  wur  so  holy  and  pious  as  you 
guv  me  the  shivers,  and  wot  you  say  is  'The  gifts  and  calling  of 
God  are  wudout  repentance.'  " 

"That's  just  about  it.  The  Elect  can't  fall  from  Grace;  and 
sinst  I  aun't  in  Grace  now,  I  never  wur  in  Grace." 

"But  how  do  you  know  you  aun't  in  Grace  now?" 

Bob  gave  a  queer  laugh. 

"You  mun  have  maade  a  mistaake  one  way,"  continued 
Clem,  "and  it  may  just  as  well  be  about  now  as  then." 

"It  aun't  my  own  judgment  now.  I've  bin  shown  clear  whur 
I  stand.  I  toald  you  as  Mus'  Beeman  had  bin  to  see  me  in 
jail." 

"Well?" 

"Well,  we  talked  it  all  over  and  over,  and  I  toaHTiim  all — 
everythink  as  I  cud  remember — and  after  he'd  thought  and 
prayed,  he  said  as  he'd  come  pretty  well  to  the  conclusion  as 
I'd  never  bin  in  Grace " 

"The  old  put!" 

"Hoald  your  tongue.    He's  a  man  of  God." 

"But  how's  the  likes  of  him  to  know  whether  you  wur  or 
wurn't  in  Grace?" 

"He  can  read  the  signs.  Wot  he  says  is  this:  I  might  have 
done  wot  I  done  wud  Hannah  and  Darius  and  still  bin  in 
Grace.  But  then  I'd  have  known  it;  I'd  have  had  the  Spirit's 
assurance  in  my  heart,  saying,  'Who  can  lay  any  think  to  the 
charge  of  God's  Elect?'  But  I  dudn't  feel  that.  I  felt  all  in 
darkness  and  as  if  I'd  lost  the  marcy  of  God.  If  I'd  bin  in 
true  grace  I'd  have  known  as  naun  cud  taake  the  Lord's  marcy 
from  His  saints — even  their  sins.  So  because  I  felt  all  out- 
cast, then  it  showed  as  how  either  I'd  fallen  from  Grace  or 
else  I'd  never  bin  in  Grace.  Seemingly  by  the  true  doctrine 
it  can't  be  the  fust,  so  it  mun  be  the  second." 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  269 

"Well  I  never — I  never  in  all  my  days  heard  such  notions. 
And  wot  does  he  maake  of  aJI  your  preaching,  and  your  gitting 
converted  lik  that?" 

"We  know  as  Satan  can  appear  as  an  angel  of  light,  and 
reckon  that's  wot  he  dud  to  me,  deceiving  me  to  think  as  I 
wur  Saaved  when  I  wur  just  a  poor  child  of  wrath.  And  even 
from  the  fust,  Mus'  Beeman  says  as  thur  wur  things  he  cudn't 
maake  out.  Fur  one  thing,  utterance  wur  never  praaperly 
given  me — I  never  cud  preach  a  true  refresher  .  .  .  the  folk  at 
the  chapels  wur  always  grumbling  about  me  ,  .  .  and  then,  if 
you  remember,  I  never  cud  win  a  single  sinner  to  Christ;  thur 
I'd  stand  spikking  and  pleading  myself  hoarse,  and  not  one  ud 
be  moved  to  lay  hold  on  Salvation.  .  .  .  Mus'  Beeman  said 
as  sometimes  when  he  spuck  the  sinners  ud  be  leaping  out  of 
their  seats  and  spinning  in  the  air  wud  their  feelings  of  Par- 
ticular Mercy  .  .  .  he'd  have  a  row  of  'em  groaning  on  the 
floor  .  .  .  and  me,  they'd  do  justabout  naua  fur  me  but 
gape." 

"But,  Bob,  IVe  heard  you  say  as  Salvation's  like  a  cup  of 
tea,  and  you've  naun  to  do  but  put  out  your  hand  and  taake 
it.  Reckon  you  shud  ought  to  know  if  you've  had  it  in  your 
hand  or  not.  Thur  can't  be  any  mistaake  about  holding  a  cup 
of  tea." 

"That's  just  it,  kid,  that's  just  it" — and  Bob's  eyes  glistened 
tragically — "I  took  the  cup  of  tea  in  my  hand  right  enough,  and 
I  had  a  taaste  of  its  sweetness,  but  it  wum't  never  meant  fur 
me;  and  now  it's  bin  taaken  away." 

"Then  all  I  can  say  is  that  God's  sarved  you  a  wuss  trick 
now  nor  ever  He  sarved  you  in  the  Throws  Chapel,  when  you 
testified  wudout  meaning  it." 

"It  wurn't  a  trick.  Reckon  He  offered  me  Salvation  full  and 
fair  that  time  in  the  chapel,  and  reckon  I  maade  a  mock  of  it. 
And  thur  wur  another  time  too  I  never  toald  you  of  .  .  .  out- 
side Mabel's  house.  .  .  .  Oh,  reckon  I've  despised  and  rejected 
the  free  gifts  of  Grace!  So  it's  only  right  as  the  Lord  shud 
let  me  think  I  have  His  marcy  and  then  taake  it  away,  just 
to  lam  me  to  mock  His  treasures." 


270  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"Well,  I  can't  say  as  it  sims  fair.  Reckon  if  God's  good  as 
you  say,  He'd  never  do  such  a  thing,  and  if  He  aun't  good, 
you're  well  shut  of  Him." 

"He  is  good,"  said  Robert. 

"Then  he  can't  have  a-done  this,  surelye." 

"You  spik  as  one  who  know  naun  of  Grace.  Doan't  you 
see  it's  all  in  Scripture?  Reckon  I'm  the  sheep  wot  never  went 
into  the  sheep  fold  by  the  door,  but  clomb  over  the  wall,  and 
the  saame  is  a  thief  and  a  robber.  Reckon  I'm  the  man  wud- 
out  a  wedding-garment,  who'd  never  bin  asked  to  the  wedding, 
and  yit  he  went  in,  wudout  ever  cleaning  himself,  and  the  Lord 
said,  'Who  is  this  wudout  a  wedding-garment?  Cast  him  into 
the  outer  darkness  whur  there  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of 
teeth.'  .  .  .  The  trouble  is  that  I  can't  disremember  the  bride- 
groom's face." 

He  turned  away  his  eyes,  and  for  a  moment  seemed  to  be 
fighting  with  himself.    Then  he  continued: 

"That's  the  tar'ble  part  of  it.  I  seen  God  once,  and  I  can't 
forget  Him.  It  wudn't  be  so  bad  fur  me  now  if  I'd  never  known 
Him,  never  loved  Him,  never  thought  I  wur  His  friend.  .  .  . 
But  now  I've  tasted  and  seen  how  gracious  the  Lord  is — and 
yet  I'm  cast  out  from  Him  for  ever." 

"I  doan't  believe  it,"  said  Clem  indignantly,  "I  doan't  be- 
lieve it,  and  you  doan't  praaperly  believe  it  yourself.  If 
you're  so  sartain-sure  as  you're  cast  out,  why  do  you  go  on 
living  good  as  you've  never  lived  before — all  kind  and  quiet 
and  such  a  help  to  me  and  Polly,  and  forgiving  Mabel  and  Jim 
and  Mary  and  all  that  lot  wot  doan't  desarve  it?  Doan't  it 
show  as  down  in  your  heart  you  still  believe  God  loves  you? 
Or  else  you  wudn't  be  so  middling  careful  to  please  Him." 

"You  doan't  understand.  I  try  to  sarve  God,  as  you  say, 
because  all  I've  got  left  of  God  is  to  sarve  Him.  That's  the 
only  thing  I  can  do  fur  Him  now,  and  it's  the  only  thing  wot 
can't  be  taaken  from  me.  ...  I  mun  kip  that  liddle  bit  of 
Him  .  .  .  it's  all  I've  got  left." 

"Then  all  I  can  say  is "  But  he  said  no  more. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  271 

§  25 

During  the  days  which  followed  Clem  and  Robert  were  silent 
on  the  matter  so  urgent  to  them  both.  They  went  about  their 
work  in  silence ;  that  burst  of  confidence  on  the  Ticehurst  road 
seemed  to  have  exhausted  their  resources,  and  for  nearly  a 
week  their  intercourse  was  limited  to  talk  of  crops  and  stock 
and  the  different  jobs  of  their  day. 

But  Clem,  anyhow,  was  thinking  deeply.  He  was  trying  to 
find  out  if  there  was  anything  he  could  still  do  for  Robert. 
Evidently  he  himself  could  not  persuade  him;  he  was  not  cle\^er 
enough  to  meet  his  brother  in  argument,  and  he  did  not  know 
enough,  or  perhaps  care  enough,  about  religion.  He  could  not 
understand  how  it  was  that  after  the  way,  according  to  Bob's 
notions,  God  had  treated  him,  he  could  still  love  God  and  want 
to  be  near  Him,  and  pine  after  Him  day  by  day.  But  doubtless 
a  really  good  and  religious  person  would  understand,  and  per- 
haps be  able  to  persuade  Bob  that  he  was  not  outcast  after  all, 
but  Foreknown  and  Predestinate  and  Justified  and  all  those 
things  that  he  wanted  to  be. 

The  trouble  was  that  Bob  would  listen  to  nobody.  He 
would  not  go  and  see  Mr.  Vine,  or  Mr.  Brackpool,  the  rector 
of  the  parish,  as  Clem  suggested  in  his  desperation.  He  would 
listen  to  nobody  but  Mr.  Beeman,  and  Mr.  Beeman  had  al- 
ready spoken.  It  struck  Clem  that  the  only  chance  for  Robert 
was  if  by  some  miracle  the  old  Pope  of  Goudhurst  should  find 
out  he  had  been  mistaken.  .  .  .  Would  it  be  possible  to  make 
him  eat  his  words?  It  was  not  likely,  but  the  more  he  thought 
about  the  matter,  the  more  he  realized  that  Mr.  Beeman  alone 
could  bring  his  brother  any  relief.  Surely  if  he  knew  how 
miserable  Bob  was,  he  would  change  his  mind  and  speak  com- 
fort. .  .  .  Anyhow,  it  wouldn't  be  a  bad  plan  if  Clem  were 
to  take  an  afternoon  off  and  go  and  visit  the  minister  at  Goud- 
hurst, and  see  if  something  couldn't  be  done. 

He  did  not  much  relish  the  prospect.  He  had  never  met  the 
old  man,  and  did  not  like  what  he  had  heard  of  him;  moreover, 
he  felt  awkward  and  shy  of  such  a  mission.  Also,  he  could 
not  help  realizing  that  it  was  not  likely  that  Mus'  Beeman 


272  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

would  agree  to  alter  his  decision  or  make  any  further,  more 
comforting  pronouncement.  Still,  it  was  the  only  thing  to 
be  done;  he  could  not  watch  Bob's  heart  slowly  breaking  day 
by  day  without  making  even  a  hopeless  effort  to  save 
him. 

He  had  not  Bob's  reasons  for  tramping  the  fifteen  miles  be- 
tween High  Tilt  and  Goudhurst,  so  he  set  off  comfortably 
enough  by  the  first  afternoon  train  from  Hawkhurst,  and  ar- 
rived at  his  destination  about  four  o'clock.  The  outside  of  the 
house  impressed  him;  it  was  so  white  and  clean,  with  green 
shutters,  new-painted,  flung  back  from  the  broad  windows,  and 
a  bell  and  knocker  so  beautifully  burnished  that  he  scarcely 
dared  touch  either  of  them. 

When  at  last  he  screwed  up  the  courage  to  ring,  the  door 
was  opened  by  a  stout,  comfortable-looking  woman  in  a  starched 
white  apron,  who  gave  him  a  welcoming  smile  when  she  heard 
his  name,  and  left  him  to  wait  in  a  spick  and  span  little  hall 
while  she  went  to  tell  the  minister.  So  this  was  the  houro 
whence  judgment  proceeded.  .  .  .  Clem  looked  round  at  tue 
green  walls  and  the  big  vase  full  of  spreading  hawthorn  set 
on  the  beautifully  polished  table,  and  found  it  hard  to  think 
that  in  this  place  Robert  had  learned  the  mysteries  of  Wrath 
which  were  his  torment  now. 

The  housekeeper  came  back  and  said  that  the  minister  was 
at  his  tea,  but  would  be  very  pleased  if  Mr,  Clement  Fuller 
would  join  him. 

Gingerly  depositing  his  hat  on  the  floor — since  the  surface 
of  the  table  looked  too  exquisite  to  receive  it — Clem  trod  after 
her  into  a  low  sunny  room,  which  seemed  full  of  a  gleaming 
white  cloth.  On  the  cloth  were  laid  out  plates  of  bread  and 
butter,  of  jam,  of  watercress,  of  spring  onions,  and  of  lemon 
cakes.  Clem's  eyes  glistened — before  they  were  swept  through 
the  increasing  splendours  of  the  tea-table  up  to  its  crowning  or 
chancellor  effect  in  a  large  pewter  tea-tray  with  an  enormous 
black  teapot,  before  which,  like  some  high  priest  of  the  cere- 
monies, was  stationed  a  venerable  old  man  in  black,  whose 
scalp  seemed  to  have  shared  in  the  general  polish  of  his  sur- 
roundings, and  whose  white  hair  fell  from  the  sides  of  his  head 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  273 

almost  to  his  shoulders,  in  striking  contrast  with  his  face, 
which  was  the  rosy  unwrinkled  face  of  a  young  child. 

At  first  Clem  could  not  help  being  impressed  by  his  vener- 
able appearance,  but  the  next  moment  he  hated  him;  that 
smooth  unlined  old  face  made  him  think  of  Robert's  young 
face  all  scored  and  dug  with  lines.  .  .  .  This  was  the  man 
who  held  the  keys  of  his  brother's  heaven — and  had  shut,  and 
no  man  could  open. 

"Good  afternoon,"  he  said  stiffly. 

''Good  afternoon,  Mr.  Fuller.  Pray  be  seated.  I  take  it 
that  I  'ave  the  honour  of  a  visit  from  the  brother  of  Mr.  Robert 
Fuller  of  Campany's  'Atch." 

"He  doan't  live  thur  now;  he  lives  along  wud  me," 

"Ah,  yes.  I  remember  now  that  he  told  me  he  meant  to 
give  up  the  farm.  Pray  let  me  give  you  a  cup  of  tea.  This 
is  real  green  tea,  Mr.  Fuller,  such  as  you  have  probably  never 
tasted  before.  It  is  now  very  rare,  but  I  remember  when  I 
was  a  lad  it  was  drunk  by  all  better-class  families.  The  lower 
classes  drank  the  black  tea,  such  as  is  most  common  nowa- 
days." 

Clem  took  the  cup  speechlessly.  He  was  beginning  to  feel 
a  little  of  this  man's  effect  on  Robert.  There  was  something 
in  that  deliberate,  heavily  modulated,  half  cultivated  old  voice 
that  seemed  positively  to  smother.  His  pronouncements 
automatically  became  oracles.  Just  now  he  had  pronounced 
on  green  tea,  and  Clem  found  himself  staring  at  his  cup  with 
submissive  reverence. 

"A  pleasant  day,  is  it  not?"  continued  the  oracle,  and  Clem 
felt  that  a  new  article  had  been  added  to  the  creed.  "I  take 
it  that  you  came  by  train — or  perhaps  you  are  transacting  busi- 
ness in  these  parts." 

"I  came  to  see  you  about  my  brother,"  said  Clem. 

"Ah,  yes.    Um  .  .  .  and  'ow  is  your  brother?" 

"How  d'you  expect  'im  to  be?"  said  Clem,  desperately  re- 
sorting to  rudeness  to  jerk  him  out  of  his  submission. 

Mr.  Beeman  shook  his  head  sorrowfully. 

"The  story  of  that  young  man  is  one  of  the  saddest  that 
I've  ever  encountered  in  the  course  of  a  long  ministry.    Won't 


274  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

you  take  one  of  those  bread-and-butters? — and  I  recommend 
a  little  watercress." 

Clem  helped  himself,  but  let  the  food  lie  uneaten  on  his 
plate.  A  sudden  distaste  for  the  whole  meal  had  possessed  him 
— it  was  not  like  tea. 

"I  visited  him  in  prison,"  continued  the  old  man,  "as  per- 
haps you  may  be  aware.  The  journey  from  here  is  exceedingly 
toilsome.  I  had  to  change  at  'Awkhurst  and  again  at  'Ead- 
corn,  and  the  connexions  are  most  inconvenient.  But  I  re- 
member the  days  when  there  was  no  railway  here  nearer  than 
Salehurst — so  we  must  not  grumble." 

"Wot  IVe  come  to  spik  to  you  about  is  wot  you  said  to  my 
brother  in  prison.  I  want  to  ask  you — maybe  he  dudn't  git 
your  meaning  quite  clear  .  .  .  but  Bob's  got  a  notion  in  his 
head  as  his  soul's  lost,  and  he  says  you  toald  him." 

"Ah,  my  dear  friend,  that  was  a  very  sorrowful  occasion — 
I  well  remember  it.  The  life  of  a  Christian  pastor  is  full  of 
cares,  and  it  was  very  grievous  for  me  to  have  to  tell  the 
young  chap  I'd  made  a  mistake  about  him — or  rather  had 
been  taken  in  by  Satan." 

"Then  you  dud  tell  him  he'd  lost  his  soul." 

"I  told  him  I  could  not  consider  him  in  Grace." 

"That  wur  it,  and  it's  bruck  his  heart.  Oh,  if  you  cud  see 
him  now,  all  struck  down  wud  son-ow,  you'd  pity  him  .  .  . 
and  I've  come  here  to  ask  you  to  send  him  a  message,  to  let 
me  tell  him  as  you  say  it  aun't  true  as  he's  lost,  that  he's  in 
Graace  right  enough — and  reckon  he'll  believe  you  and  be  a 
chaanged  man,  and  happy  agaun — leastways  as  happy  as  a 
man  can  be  wot's  lost  everything  on  earth.  It's  only  a  liddle 
thing  fur  you  to  do,  but  it'll  maake  all  the  difference  to  Bob. 
You  just  let  me  tell  him  from  you  as  he  aun't  going  to  hell." 

"My  dear  young  man,  you  are  asking  me  to  change  the 
counsels  of  the  Most  'Igh." 

"In  wot  way?" 

"Well,  it  ain't  for  me  to  say  if  your  brother's  Saved  or  lost. 
I  can  but  read  the  signs,  and  if,  according  to  them,  he's  in 
Grace — then  I  don't  know  what  Grace  is." 

"I  doan't  know  wot  you  mean  by  in  Grace  and  out  of 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  275 

Grace  and  all  that.  I  reckon  Bob's  a  good  chap — better'n 
most  of  us." 

"You  can  but  read  the  outward  man;  God  alone  readeth 
the  heart." 

"He'll  see  naun  in  Bob's  heart  but  wot's  good." 

"Do  not  speak  so  blasphemously.  Bob  is  a  worm.  You 
are  a  worm.  I  am  a  worm.  Besides,  the  conclusion  of  the 
matter  ain't  whether  your  brother  does  or  does  not  do  right 
with  his  legal  conscience,  but  whether  he  is  or  is  not  in  a  state 
of  Grace." 

"I  doan't  know  wot  you  mean  by  a  state  of  Grace.  .  .  . 
All  I  know  is  that  Bob's  a  good  chap,  that  he's  given  up  a 
lot  and  put  up  wud  a  lot,  and  gone  preaching  the  Gospel  .  .  . 
and  as  fur  wot  he  did  wud  them  gipsies,  reckon  he  wur  tempted, 
and  it  aun't  fur  me  and  you  to  judge  him." 

"You  are  yet  without  the  light  of  sound  doctrine;  you  do 
nothing  but  tell  me  what  your  brother  has  done,  when  we  are 
told  that  all  our  righteousness  is  as  filthy  rags.  It  is  a  shocking 
thing  to  see  a  poor  worm  boast  of  its  filthy  rags,  when  it  should 
be  on  its  knees  begging  pardon  of  God.  Let  me  give  you 
another  cup  of  tea." 

Clem  thrust  his  hands  into  his  hair.  He  seemed  powerless 
to  argue  with  this  calm,  benevolent  old  man  who  had  a  terrible 
faculty  for  making  a  cup  of  tea  and  the  day  of  judgment  seem 
equally  portentous.  Also,  though  he  was  used  to  Bob's  doc- 
trinal expressions,  he  had  never  really  fathomed  their  meaning, 
and  was  quite  at  a  loss  in  this  marsh  of  theology.  "In  Grace" — 
"out  of  Grace"— what  did  it  all  mean?  ...  He  watched  Mus' 
Beeman  as  he  pontilicated  behind  the  tea-tray,  and  a  kind  of 
helpless  fascination  came  upon  him.  He  felt  unable  to  fight 
for  Bob  any  longer. 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  Mr.  Beeman,  lifting  the  teapot  solemnly, 
as  if  it  were  a  monstrance.  "I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  give 
you  any  comfort  for  your  brother.  If  he  was  in  a  state  of 
Grace  he  would  be  the  first  to  know  it,  and  the  fact  of  his 
reprobation  is  not  known  to  him  merely  through  my  poor 
v.rrds  but  through  his  own  interior  witness — there  is  no  Abba 
r  ather  in  'is  'eart." 


276  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"But  if  you'd  only  say.  .  .  ."  Clem  pleaded  abjectly,  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  teapot. 

"Young  man,  I  have  told  you  before  that  I  can't  change  the 
counsels  of  the  Most  'Igh.'* 

"But  pore  Bob " 

"I  am  deeply  grieved  for  your  poor,  unfortunate  brother. 
But  I  ask  you — can  I  'elp  it?  From  the  first  we  were  taken 
in  by  Satan;  though  I  will  say  I  had  my  suspicions,  even  from 
the  first.  Your  brother  was  a  great  disappointment  to  me  in 
many  ways — he  never  took  properly  to  Salvation.  The  saints 
didn't  feel  at  'ome  with  him — they  couldn't  get  the  feeling  of 
the  Lord  speaking  through  his  mouth.  Many's  the  time  I've 
wrestled  with  the  Spirit  on  his  account,  wondering  what  the 
matter  was  ,  .  .  and  now  of  course  it's  plain.  He  never  was 
in  Grace.  He,  and  me  as  well,  had  been  deceived  by  Satan 
disguised  as  an  Angel  of  Light." 

Clem  could  not  speak.  He  sat  as  if  paralyzed,  his  eyes 
fixed  on  Mr.  Beeman's  teapot,  which  he  still  held  aloft,  and 
which  seemed  in  some  strange  way  to  join  in  his  condemnation 
of  Robert. 

"Your  brother  never  was  quite  at  'ome  with  us,"  continued 
the  minister;  "he'd  go  trusting  to  legal  works  such  as  con- 
verting sinners,  and  it  was  through  legal  works  that  he  fell, 
for  he  tells  me  that  he  had  a  notion  he  was  meant  to  convert 
the  young  woman  as  all  the  trouble  was  about.  He  didn't 
wait  upon  the  Lord.  Then  I  never  could  feel  quite  sure  about 
his  doctrine — there  wasn't  a  heresy  going  about  that  he  didn't 
seem  to  get  some  splash  of" — it  seemed  to  Clem  as  if  the 
teapot  shared  its  owner's  look  of  shocked  suspicion.  "One  of 
my  deacons  said  to  me:  'You  mark  my  words — that  man  ull 
end  as  a  Gardnerite'  " — the  teapot  shuddered.  "Well,  his 
hour  came — 'e  was  weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting 
— Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin.  If  he'd  had  real  Assur- 
ance, if  he'd  truly  been  in  Grace,  not  all  the  onslaughts  of  the 
wicked  one  could  have  shaken  him  out  of  it.  Even  when  the 
whole  thing  was  shown  up  and  he  got  sent  to  jail  he  could 
still  'ave  'eld  'is  'ead  up,  knowing  as  he  was  the  Lord's  Chosen. 
But  did  'e  'old  'is  'ead  up?    Did  'e  say:    'Who  shall  lay  any- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  277 

think  to  the  charge  of  God's  Elect?' — I  ask  you.  No,  'e  didn't. 
He  just  went  flat  like  a  bust  bag.  Why? — because  'e  knew 
'e  was  lost — and  there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice  for 
sins,  but  a  certain  fiery  looking  forward  to  Judgment" — the 
teapot  suddenly  shot  up  on  Mr.  Beeman's  uplifted  arm,  and 
for  a  moment  became  an  almost  celestial  object,  thundering 
judgment  and  doom.  Then  Mr.  Beeman  lowered  it  and  poured 
Clem  out  a  cup  of  tea. 

"So  that's  settled,"  he  said.  "I'm  sorry  I  can't  give  you 
any  comfort,  Mr.  Fuller.  But  perhaps  you  may  find  it  Else- 
where." 

"I  doan't  want  any  comfort  if  Bob's  got  none.  I  doan't 
want  to  go  to  heaven  if  Bob  aun't  thur.  .  .  .  But  I  can't  be- 
lieve as  God  ud  let  him  be  taaken  in  lik  that — at  the  fust,  I 
mean." 

"He  had  led  a  very  wicked  life,  and  had  put  himself  in 
Satan's  power.  You  never  can  tell  what  the  devil  will  do  with 
his  own." 

"I  can't  see  as  Bob  wur  so  tar'ble  bad.  Reckon  he  was  a 
bit  wild  at  times,  but  then  a  lot  of  chaps  take  a  glass  too  much 
now  and  then;  and  as  fur  Hannah  Ripley,  he  loved  her  .  .  . 
you  can't  say  as  it  wur  his  fault  as  love  dudn't  come  to  him 
saafe  and  praaper  as  it  comes  to  most.  Anyways,  I  doan't 
see  as  he's  done  aught  to  desarve  all  this." 

Mr.  Beeman  smiled  almost  pityingly. 

"There  you  go  again — talking  about  'deserve.'  I  tell  you 
it's  not  what  we  deserve,  but  what  the  Lord  decrees." 

Clem  suddenly  rose  to  his  feet,  and  pushed  his  cup  away. 

"I  mun  go  hoame,"  he  said,  "fur  it's  plain  as  you'll  never 
help  me." 

"Willingly  would  I  'elp  you — right  gladly  would  I  'elp  you 
— if  the  power  were  given  me  from  on  'Igh.  But  it  ain't. 
It  is  the  Lord's  will,  and  we  must  bow  down  before  His  judg- 
ments." 

He  ushered  his  visitor  into  the  neat  little  hall,  where  the 
petals  of  hawthorn  were  dropping  on  the  polished  surface  of 
the  table — and  here  suddenly  Clem  got  back  his  courage. 
Escaped  from  the  stupefying  ritual  of  the  tea-table,  he  was 


278  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

able  to  shake  off  that  queer  smother  of  oppression  which  had 
settled  on  him.  His  heart  burned  with  indication  against 
this  old  fellow,  who  benevolently  condemned  poor  Robert  to 
life-long  misery,  accepting  his  doom  with  calm  self-satisfac- 
tion. He  hated  his  smooth,  venerable  old  face,  his  well-kept, 
polished  hall,  his  august  and  plentiful  meals — all  the  ordered 
and  prosperous  surroundings  from  which  he  dealt  out  the 
Wrath  to  Come. 

"Then  you  woan't  chaange  your  mind  about  my  brother?" 
he  said  almost  truculently. 

"My  friend — it  isn't  my  mind,  it  is  the  Lord's." 

"It  aun't!"  cried  Clem  thickly;  "you're  telling  lies.  I 
doan't  believe — I'll  never  believe  as  Bob's  done  anything  to 
desarve  wot  he's  having  now.  He's  a  good  chap;  he  does  the 
wark  of  two  men,  and  he  lights  our  kitchen  fire  every  morn- 
ing. The  Lord  ud  never  condemn  him;  and  as  fur  his  having 
bin  in  jail,  it's  naun — reckon  he  dudn't  do  anything  half  so 
bad  as  wot  you're  doing  vioid  your  wicked  lies  .  .  .  wot  I  pray 
you'll  answer  fur  one  day,  and  taaste  a  liddle  bit  of  wot  my 
pore  Bob  has  to  swaller." 

He  choked  with  grief  and  rage,  and  the  old,  unruffled  voice 
answered  him: 

"You  are  very  violent,  young  chap — ^very  violent  to  an  old 
man.  But  I  wish  you  no  'arm.  I  bear  you  no  ill-will.  I 
know  in  '00m  I  'ave  trusted.  Pray  mind  the  scraper — you  are 
about  to  fall  over  it.  .  .  .  Ah,  I  was  afraid  so.  I  'ope  you 
are  not  'lirt." 

§  26 

Clem  did  not  tell  Robert  about  his  ill-fated  expedition  to 
Goudhurst.  It  would  have  only  made  matters  worse.  He 
managed  somehow  to  explain  his  half-day's  absence,  and  Bob 
never  asked  many  questions  now.  The  burden  of  life  and  work 
was  taken  up  with  an  added  sense  of  hopelessness.  Robert 
toiled  behind  the  plough  in  the  spring  sowings,  he  drilled  with 
aching  back  in  the  turnip  fields,  he  bound  and  sprayed  the 
hops  that  were  beginning  to  weave  their  first  tendrils  round 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  279 

the  poles.  He  cared  for  the  new-born  calves  and  the  lambs 
that  raced  round  the  fields  at  the  merry  time  of  sunset.  He 
helped  thatch  the  Dutch  barn,  he  dunged  the  orchards.  He 
was  perhaps  even  a  little  quieter  than  when  he  had  first  come 
home.  He  often  sat  through  a  meal  without  speaking  a  word. 
There  might  have  been  some  fresh  lines  on  his  face,  and  some 
of  the  old  ones  were  a  little  deeper.  But  some  of  the  high 
colour  he  had  lost  in  prison  was  coming  back,  under  the  thick 
dark  sunburn  that  the  weather  was  putting  on  his  cheeks. 
He  ate  well  and  he  slept  well ;  he  once  told  Clem  that  he  some- 
times had  painful  dreams,  but  these  turned  out  to  be  painful 
only  in  their  waking,  since  in  them  he  was  back  once  more 
in  the  love  of  God,  happy  and  safe. 

Every  week  he  put  a  bit  of  money  by  for  Mabel.  It  was 
not  much,  after  he  had  paid  for  his  board  and  the  keep  of  his 
child,  but  he  was  pleased  to  think  that  it  would  buy  her  one 
or  two  small  luxuri^  she  might  not  otherwise  be  able  to  afford, 
such  as  a  new  hat  or  a  visit  to  the  pictures.  She  was  well  pro- 
vided for  both  by  her  father  and  by  her  marriage  settlements, 
but  since  it  so  obviously  pleased  Bob  to  do  this  for  her,  neither 
Clem  nor  Polly  tried  to  dissuade  him. 

Mabel  received  his  offering  in  silence — a  silence  that  had 
not  been  broken  now  for  weeks.  She  seemed  to  have  dropped 
out  of  the  life  of  Bodingmares  and  its  offshoots  of  Pookwell 
and  Marsh  Quarter.  Yet  they  could  not  quite  feel  that  she 
was  gone — she  had  belonged  so  inextricably  to  them  in  spite 
of  her  queer  hostilities  and  furrin  ways.  Now  and  then  Clem 
thought  of  writing  to  her  and  asking  her  to  come  and  see 
Bob,  but  the  contemplation  of  a  letter  invariably  palsied  him 
— besides,  he  did  not  know  whether  Bob  wanted  to  see  her 
again  or  not. 

Then  a  day  came  when  Robert  had  to  go  into  Bulverhythe 
to  see  the  dentist.  He  had  a  bad  tooth  which  ached  very 
much  at  nights,  and  they  thought  he  had  better  go  and  have 
it  out. 

"Since  I'm  in  Bulverhythe  I'll  go  and  have  a  look  at  Mabel," 
he  said  quite  calmly  at  dinner  before  he  started. 

"Wudn't  you  write  her  a  letter  fust?"  suggested  Polly. 


28o  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"I'd  sooner  call  araound  and  just  ask  her  if  she'll  see  me — 
she  can  say  'No'  if  she  doan't  want  to." 

''You  shud  ought  to  taake  Nat  wud  you,  then." 

But  Robert  shook  his  head. 

"I  only  want  just  to  spik  to  her  and  see  how  she's  doing." 

Clem  had  arranged  to  go  with  him  to  Bulverhythe,  He 
knew  that  Bob  did  not  like  being  left  much  alone,  and  he 
could  do  some  business  at  the  Sadler's  while  his  brother  was 
at  the  dentist.  He  found,  after  they  had  started,  that  Robert 
wanted  him  to  go  with  him  to  see  Mabel. 

"You  might  see  her  first,  Clem,  and  ask  her  if  she'll  see  me 
— she  always  thought  well  of  you,  and  maybe  you  can  maake 
her  let  me  come  in." 

Qem  felt  convinced  that  the  interview  with  Mabel  would 
be  just  as  fruitless  and  depressing  as  the  interview  with  Mus' 
Beeman;  but  Robert  did  not  seem  to  expect  much  from  it, 
though  his  heart  was  set  on  it,  so  his  younger  brother  agreed. 
They  met  at  about  five  o'clock  at  the  corner  of  Mabel's  street, 
and  went  together  up  the  steps  of  her  house. 

Mabel  was  at  home,  and  craftily  they  sent  only  Clem's  name 
in  to  her  by  the  servant.  Yes,  Mrs.  Fuller  would  see  him  .  .  . 
and  Clem  found  himself  in  her  drawing-room,  in  the  midst 
of  a  suite  of  tapestried  furniture,  a  piano,  and  many  ferns 
in  ornamental  pots,  while  Robert  waited  uneasily  in  the  hall. 

"Hallo,  Clem,"  said  Mabel.  "I  was  wondering  if  you'd  ever 
come  and  see  me.    Have  you  had  your  tea?" 

"I  doan't  want  any,  thanks,"  said  Clem  hurriedly,  feeling 
that  in  its  very  different  way  Mabel's  tea  would  be  just  as 
damnable  as  Mus'  Beeman's. 

He  sat  opposite  her  in  silence  for  a  moment  or  two,  staring 
at  her  with  those  round,  yellowish  eyes  which  Mabel  had 
always  found  disconcerting.  He  felt  that  he  ought  to  break 
it  to  her  gently  that  Bob  was  in  the  house,  and  it  was  just 
because  he  was  so  anxious  to  be  diplomatic  that  he  finally 
blurted  straight  out: 

"IVe  brung  Bob  to  see  you." 

"Where  is  he?"  cried  Mabel. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  281 

"Outside  in  the  passage.  He  wants  to  see  you  summat 
lar'ble." 

"I  don't  want  to  see  him." 

"Please  let  him  see  you,  Mabel — just  to  spik  a  ward.'* 

"He's  come  to  ask  me  to  go  back  to  him." 

"He  aun't— he  woan't." 

"I  wonder  he's  got  the  cheek  to  come,  after  the  way  he'^s 
treated  me." 

"He's  middling  sorry  fur  all  he's  done  bad — and  he  thinks 
he's  lost  his  soul — and  he's  just  had  a  tooth  out." 

Mabel  looked  more  relenting.  She  still  had  it  in  her  power 
to  pity  Bob  phj^sically,  and  the  thought  of  the  lost  tooth 
touched  her.  For  the  lost  soul  she  cared  no  whit — his  soul 
had  always  been  a  disturbing  factor  in  a  purely  physical  pos- 
session ...  if  it  was  now  lost,  so  much  the  better.  But  she 
had  loved  Bob's  strong  white  teeth,  and  was  sorry  that  one 
of  them  was  missing. 

"You'll  promise  me  he  won't  try  and  make  me  come  back 
to  him?  And  there's  no  good  his  trying  to  make  me  take  the 
kid,  either.  I  can't  have  him  here  with  father,  and  I  must 
stop  with  father  now  because  of  what  people  will  think." 

"He  woan't  ask  you  back,  and  as  fur  the  kid,  he's  set  on 
him — leastways,  as  much  as  he's  set  on  anything.  May  I 
tell  him  to  come  in?" 

"Oh,  very  well  ...  I  suppose  I  can't  help  it." 

Clem  opened  the  door,  and  summoned  Bob,  who  came  in 
and  stood  before  Mabel. 

He  stood  upright,  \vith  a  queer  air  of  self-possession  about 
him,  though  he  was  humble  and  silent.  To  Mabel  he  gave 
a  new  impression  of  dignity.  She  had  never  seen  anything 
dignified  in  Bob  before,  he  had  always  been  a  bit  clumsy,  he 
had  always  failed  to  be  impressive  either  as  a  sinner  or  as  a 
saint;  but  to-day  he  had  a  spice  of  dignity,  though  she  could 
not  tell  exactly  in  what  it  lay. 

"Hallo,  Bob,"  she  said,  with  the  edge  off  her  self-confidence^ 
"how  are  you?" 

"I'm  very  well,  thank  you." 


282  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"I  hear  you've  just  had  a  tooth  out." 
'    *'Yes,  one  at  the  bottom." 

"Did  it  hurt?"  asked  Clem. 

"Naun  particular.    He  put  some  stuff  into  the  gum." 

They  were  all  three  looking  anxiously  at  each  other.  None 
of  them  wanted  to  be  talking  like  this  about  Robert's  tooth, 
and  at  the  same  time  they  were  dreading  the  time  when  it 
should  be  exhausted  as  a  topic  of  conversation. 

"I  wunst  had  some  stuff  put  in,"  said  Clem,  "but  it  hurt 
tar'ble  all  the  saum." 

Nobody  said  anything  more  for  a  moment.  Three  pairs  of 
eyes  wandered  covertly.  It  was  finally  Mabel  who  had  the 
courage  to  break  away. 

"How's  the  kid?" 

"Doing  valiant.    He  gain  a  paound  last  week." 

"You  don't  mind  keeping  him  for  a  bit  longer?  I  can't 
take  him  yet  awhiles." 

"I'll  keep  him  as  long  as  you  like.  I  doan't  want  to  be  rid 
of  him." 

Mabel  flushed. 

"He  always  was  more  your  child  than  mine.  He's  growing 
like  you  too;  he's  not  like  me." 

"He's  a  stout  liddle  chap,"  said  Clem. 

"Well,  we  aren't  likely  to  quarrel  over  him  anyhow.  I  know 
you  think  I'm  an  unnatural  mother — and  I  dare  say  I  am, 
but  it's  not  all  my  fault." 

"No,  it  aun't,"  admitted  Robert. 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that.  I  know  Clem  and  Polly 
think  I  was  a  beast  to  leave  you  .  .  .  but  really  it  was  getting 
too  thick." 

"I'll  never  ask  you  to  come  back,"  said  Robert,  "though  if 
you'd  come  I'd  be  unaccoimtable  glad." 

Mabel  shook  her  head. 

"There's  no  good  thinking  of  it — I'll  never  come  back.  It 
isn't  only  what's  happened.  ...  I  never  was  the  right  wife 
for  you,  Robert." 

"I'm  sorry,"  he  said  humbly,  "but  I  reckon  you're  comfort- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  283 

able  here — got  all  you  want — and  I'll  always  manage  to  send 
you  a  bit." 

Mabel  laughed  mirthlessly. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  dare  say  I'm  'comfortable' — I've  got  nice  furni- 
ture, and  a  piano.  .  .  .  But  if  you  think  it's  any  better  fun 
for  me  than  for  you,  being  married  and  living  separate  like 
this — all  alone  and  yet  not  free.  .  .  .  We  might  get  a  separa- 
tion order,  I  suppose;  you  can  keep  the  child " 

"Maybe  that  ud  be  the  best  thing  to  do." 

"Oh,  doan't  do  naun  in  a  hurry,"  put  in  Clem. 

"It  won't  be  doing  much,"  said  Mabel,  "and  we'll  be  just 
the  same  as  before,  except  as  it'll  all  be  settled  and  on  a  legal 
footing,  as  father  ud  say.  He's  been  wanting  me  to  get  a 
separation  .  .  .  but  sometimes  I  wish  you'd  done  something 
I  could  get  a  divorce  for,  and  then  we'd  be  free,  so  that  if  we 
wanted  to  marry  anyone  else,  we  could." 

"Do  you  want  to  marry  anyone?" 

"No — not  now,  at  any  rate;  I've  had  enough  to  last  me  a 
while.  .  .  .  But  there's  always  fellows  around  .  .  .  and  it's 
awful  being  like  this,  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other.  At  one 
time  I  felt  sure  that  now  I'd  left  you,  you'd  go  with  Han- 
nah  " 

"I  cud  never  do  that." 

"What?    Don't  you  love  her  any  more?" 

"Yes,  I  love  her  right  enough,"  said  Bob  naively,  "but,  fur 
one  thing,  she  doan't  want  me — she's  got  her  own  husband^ 
and  besides  .  .  .  well,  all  that's  over." 

He  stood  stockish,  with  rather  a  stupid  look  on  his  face. 
Mabel  began  to  wonder  what  had  made  her  think  him  dig- 
nified. 

For  a  few  awkward  moments  they  stood  looking  at  each 
other,  none  willing  to  make  any  movement  to  end  the  inter- 
view, and  at  the  same  time  all  aware  that,  for  any  practical 
purpose,  it  was  over. 

"Well,  maybe  we  mun  be  going,"  said  Clem  at  last. 

"Yes — perhaps — good-bye,"  said  Mabel. 

They  shook  hands  all  round. 


284  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"I'll  write,"  said  Mabel  to  Bob,  "when  IVe  talked  to  father 
about  the  separation  order." 

Bob  mumbled  something,  and  the  brothers  went  out  hur- 
riedly, nearly  falling  over  their  sticks.  Mabel  sat  down  to 
the  piano,  which  she  could  not  play,  and  picked  out  with  one 
finger  the  opening  bars  of  the  Waltz  Dream;  they  could  hear 
her  as  they  walked  away  up  the  street. 

"Well,  that  wurn't  much  use,"  said  Clem. 

"Still  I'm  glad  I  seen  her,"  said  Robert. 

They  said  no  more  about  her  till  they  were  home,  and  not 
very  much  then — only  just  enough  to  let  Polly  know  what  had 
happened.  Robert  was  quieter  than  ever  at  supper  and  after- 
wards. He  seemed  to  be  brooding  deeply.  When  he  had 
helped  Polly  as  usual  with  the  washing  up,  he  went  out  into 
the  warm  dusk,  smelling  faintly  of  hawthorn,  and  leaned  over 
the  gate. 

He  stayed  there  while  the  darkness  fell  and  drowned  the 
dim  gleaming  gold  of  the  buttercup  fields.  The  air  thickened 
as  it  chilled,  smudging  the  few  faint  stars  that  were  hanging 
round  the  chimney  of  Pookwell.  Down  at  the  rim  of  the 
eastern  sky,  above  the  woods,  there  was  a  wan  kindling,  show- 
ing that  soon  the  May  moon  would  rise  and  call  the  buttercups, 
and  the  chervil,  and  the  roads  with  the  feathery  dust,  out  of 
the  darkness  into  her  white  peace. 

Robert  saw  ghosts  in  the  lane.  They  were  the  ghosts  of 
his  old  self  and  Mabel  and  Hannah,  adrift  under  the  stars. 
He  could  see  Bob  Fuller  ranging  round  the  pubs,  drinking, 
and  playing  darts  and  billiards,  and  startling  the  old  men — 
he  could  not  think  that  Bob  Fuller  was  himself.  He  saw  Bob 
Fuller  and  Hannah  Iden  slinking  together  between  the  hedges, 
through  the  little  lanes  with  their  shadows,  to  the  Rother 
marshes  spread  under  the  moon — and  the  moan  of  the  river 
and  the  dancing  silver  on  the  reeds  .  .  .  and  the  moan  of 
love  in  Hannah's  throat,  and  his  own  heart  beating  and  break- 
ing for  joy  .  .  .  that  was  himself  right  enough;  he  saw  no 
stranger  there.  .  .  .  Mabel  came,  provoking,  enticing,  repuls- 
ing, disappointing,  suffering,  repining,  eating  her  own  heart 
out.  .  .  .  Poor  Mabel! 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  285 

He  was  startled  by  a  footstep  at  his  side.     It  was  Polly. 

"Me  and  Clem  are  going  up  to  bed — when 'II  you  come  in?" 

"I'll  come  now." 

The  horn  of  the  moon  showed  above  Bugshull  Wood,  and 
the  pale  light  was  on  Robert's  face.  Polly  looked  at  him 
critically.  She  was  sorry  for  him — tedious  sorry — but  she 
couldn't  help  being  a  little  angry  with  him  too,  because  she 
knew  he  was  making  Clem  unhappy. 

"Bob,  it's  silly  of  you  to  go  mooning  by  yourself.  You 
mun  stick  indoors  wud  us  and  kip  cheerful." 

"I  doan't  know  wot  maade  me  come  here." 

"Nor  I  nuther.  And  now  sinst  I'm  spikking  to  you.  Bob, 
I  mun  say  as  you  shud  ought  to  do  your  best  to  kip  cheerful — 
leastways  to  look  it — fur  Clem's  saake.  He's  unaccountable 
vrothered  about  you." 

"I'm  sorry." 

"Well,  you  try  and  be  in  better  spirits.  I  know  you're 
troubled,  but  it'll  come  right.  You've  got  stuck  on  a  lot  of 
ideas  wot  aun't  got  no  sense  in  them,  and  Clem's  gitting  all 
the  trouble  of  them  too.  I  tell  you  he  scarce  slept  a  wink 
last  night,  and  the  night  before  he  was  tossing  all  over  the 
bed — and  sometimes  he  looks  all  sad  and  gloamy,  him  who 
used  to  be  so  satisfied." 

Bob  looked  abashed. 

"I'm  middling  sorry.  Poll.  I'm  a  bit  upset,  but  I  didn't 
mean  to  vrother  you  and  Clem." 

"Then  you  try  and  look  more  cheerful.  I  tell  you  it'll  all 
come  right.  Doan't  think  me  hard-hearted.  Bob,  but  I  can't 
help  worriting  about  Clem,  when  I  see  him  so  chaanged  and 
gloamy." 

"I'll  do  my  best." 

"Reckon  you  will — I  know  you're  a  good  chap.  And  now 
let's  go  in  to  bed — ^you'll  find  baby  nicely  asleep." 

§  27 

Baby  was  indeed  nicely  asleep.  His  head  showed  a  small 
brown  patch  above  the  turned-back  edge  of  the  sheet.    Robert 


286  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

stood  looking  down  at  him  for  a  moment  before  he  set  the 
candle  on  a  chair  and  began  to  undress.  He  undressed  slowly, 
for  he  had  grown  curiously  vague  and  slow  in  some  of  his 
actions  of  late.  He  stood  for  some  time  with  his  collar  in  his 
hand,  looking  out  of  the  window,  which  was  uncurtained. 
The  moonlight  was  flooding  the  garden,  the  dark  clumps  of 
the  lilac  bushes  and  the  sods  of  the  cabbage  ground  below. 
Up  into  the  midst  of  it  rose  a  pyramid  of  white  blossom — a 
young  cherry  tree  flowering  late.  The  whiteness  stood  out 
against  the  grey  illumination  of  the  bushes  and  the  darkness 
of  the  shadows — it  seemed  to  hang  on  the  air,  Robert  stood 
staring  at  it  abstractedly. 

His  head  ached  a  little — he  had  had  a  good  deal  of  pain  in 
his  head  of  late,  though  with  more  consideration  than  Polly 
gave  him  credit  for,  he  had  said  nothing  about  it.  He  was, 
moreover,  in  a  state  to  which  he  was  also  growing  accustomed 
— a  state  of  heaviness  and  bewilderment,  which  was  accom- 
panied by  a  queer  mental  alertness,  apparently  working  under 
the  thick  outer  paralysis.  ...  He  stood  for  some  minutes 
holding  his  collar  in  his  hand,  staring  out  at  the  hanging  white- 
ness of  the  cherry  tree. 

He  was  thinking  of  Mabel — how  she  had  stood  in  the  middle 
of  that  drawing-room  in  the  Sea  Road  at  Bulverhythe,  with 
the  tears  spilling  out  of  the  comers  of  her  eyes.  He  remem- 
bered what  she  had  said — she  would  never  come  back  to  him 
— after  all,  he  did  not  want  her  to  come  back.  ...  He  didn't 
really  love  her;  it  was  merely  that  she  seemed  to  belong  to 
him  in  some  queer  sort  of  way,  to  be  part  of  his  flesh.  .  .  . 
If  she  were  with  him  now  he  would  only  be  making  her  un- 
happy— just  as  he  was  making  Clem  unhappy — and  Polly — 
everyone. 

Oh,  it's  no  fun  living  with  a  man  in  hell,  and  Mabel  was 
more  comfortable  in  the  Sea  Road  at  Bulverhythe,  with  her 
father  and  her  furniture  and  her  piano  .  .  .  and  yet  she  had 
said  she  was  not  happy — "living  separate  and  yet  not  free" 
...  she  had  actually  wished  that  he  had  taken  up  with  Han- 
nah, so  that  she  could  divorce  him — that  was  a  lot  for  Mabel 
to  say. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  287 

He  put  down  his  collar  on  the  chest  of  drawers  and,  taking 
off  his  coat,  hung  it  carefully  on  a  nail.  Then  he  sat  down 
on  a  little  low  chair  by  the  bed,  and  began  to  unlace  his  boots. 
He  did  not  get  far  with  them — his  eyes  were  still  fixed  on  the 
moonlight  and  the  hanging  cloud  of  cherry  blossom.  The 
stillness  and  beauty  hurt  him — he  could  not  tell  why;  but 
they  seemed  to  reproach  him.  Perhaps  it  was  because  these 
quiet  moon-flooded  nights  were  part  of  memory,  and  all  his 
memories  reproached  him  now.  They  were  like  children  say- 
ing:    "Why  did  you  give  us  life?" 

He  slid  from  the  chair  to  his  knees  beside  the  bed.  It 
was  from  force  of  habit,  because  he  never  prayed  now.  There 
was  no  use  importuning  the  Lord  Who  had  condemned  him. 
Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right? — and  Robert  did 
not  want  to  trouble  Him  with  his  useless  prayers  and  entreaties, 
since  he  felt  that  such  must  be  painful  to  One  who  was,  in 
spite  of  appearances,  the  God  of  love.  .  .  .  The  waves  of  his 
trouble  seemed  to  spread  from  his  heart  in  circles  that  en- 
gulfed first  Mabel,  then  Clem  and  Polly,  and  at  last  mysteri- 
ously lapped  the  footsteps  of  the  Judgment  throne.  Anyhow, 
Bob  felt,  Jesus  must  be  sorry  he  was  condemned.  .  .  . 

He  hid  his  face  in  his  hands,  and  became  very  still.  It  v;as 
Polly  that  he  saw  now,  standing  there  and  looking  at  him  re- 
proachfully: "You  mun  kip  cheerful  and  not  vrother  Clem." 
Oh,  he  knew  he  was  a  kill-joy — he  knew  he  was  spoiling  their 
lives.  But  he  could  not  help  it.  Such  grief  as  his  could  not 
be  hidden.  And  yet  Polly  was  quite  right — it  wasn't  fair 
that  Clem  should  get  unsettled  and  depressed  because  of  him, 
because  of  his  kindness  to  him,  just  because  he  had  been  good 
to  him  when  everyone  else  had  turned  away.  He  had  faced 
the  neighbourhood's  disapproval  by  taking  the  outlaw  under 
his  roof,  he  had  risked  losing  favour  with  Jim — he  had  stood 
by  Robert  when  everyone  else,  even  his  own  wife,  had  for- 
saken him.  ...  It  was  not  the  only  occasion  he  had  stood 
by  him — as  Mabel's  husband,  as  Hannah's  lover,  Clem  had 
always  been  on  his  side.  He  had  always  been  Bob's  best 
friend;  and  now  his  brother  was  repaying  him  by  making  him 
wretched;  for  it  was  not  only  Polly's  words  that  had  shown 


288  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

him  a  change  in  his  brother,  though  with  the  inevitable  selfish- 
ness of  grief  he  had  somehow  accepted  that  change.  He  had 
been  unable  to  help  noticing  Clem's  growing  depression — 
naturally  it  was  not  cheerful  to  live  with  a  man  like  him. 

If  Robert  had  any  decency  he  would  make  up  his  mind  to 
go  away,  and  hide  his  misery  in  some  furrin  place.  But  the 
thought  was  intolerable — the  companionship  of  his  brother 
and  sister-in-law — the  small  bustle  of  their  day — the  fact  that 
he  was  hardly  ever  left  alone — all  combined  to  make  his  life 
just  bearable.  Away  from  them,  lonely  and  among  strangers, 
he  would  have  lost  his  last  prop — he  would  rather  die.  Yet, 
as  long  as  he  stayed,  Clem  would  be  unhappy — it  was  im- 
possible to  expect  him  to  be  anything  else.  He  ought  to  go 
away — but  he  could  not;  for  one  thing,  Clem  would  never  let 
him — for  another,  he'd  rather  die.  .  .  .  Well,  why  not? 

He  lifted  his  head  sharply  from  his  clasped  hands.  The 
moonlight  was  in  the  room  now,  and  the  homed  moon  hung 
in  the  square  of  the  little  window.  She  was  very  white  and 
dim — there  was  none  of  the  glassy  radiance  of  winter,  nor  the 
burnished  splendour  of  autumn.  She  was  just  white,  like  a 
blown  petal  of  the  white  tree  which  seemed  mysteriously  to 
hang  among  the  shadows.  She  lit  up  the  face  of  the  child 
sleeping  in  the  bed,  and  he  stirred  and  moaned,  flinging  one  arm 
outside  the  sheet.     Robert  put  it  back,  and  the  baby  half 

woke:     "Mumma — dada "  he  murmered  at  Robert's  warm 

touch. 

Well,  why  not?  .  .  .  The  baby  was  no  reason — he  scarcely 
knew  his  father.  That  murmur  of  sleepy  love  had  been  for 
Clem  and  Polly.  He  would  perhaps  for  a  day  or  two  ask 
questions  about  the  queer  man  who  had  been  with  him  for  a 
little  time  and  then  had  gone  .  .  .  but  he  would  not  cry  when 
Clem  and  Polly  told  him  he  would  never  come  back.  He 
would  love  them,  who  had  been  so  much  more  of  father  and 
mother  to  him  than  his  own.  and  they  would  take  care  of  him 
and  teach  him  and  bring  him  up  a  happy  child — he  needn't 
worry  about  the  baby. 

Of  course  Clem  and  Polly  would  mind — they  would  mind 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  289 

summat  tar'ble.  But  it  would  not  be  any  worse  for  them 
than  having  to  watch  him  now,  and  as  time  passed  they  would 
get  over  it.  His  memory  would  not  be  the  continuous  burden 
that  his  living  presence  was,  and  in  time  they  would  come 
to  talk  about  it  as  "all  for  the  best."  Then  there  was  Mabel 
— his  death  could  not  possibly  bring  her  any  sorrow.  Perhaps 
one  or  two  of  those  tears  would  run  so  oddly  out  of  the  comers 
of  her  eyes  .  .  .  but  then  she  would  remember  that  she  was 
free,  that  there  was  to  be  no  more  semi-detached  life  for  her, 
that  she  could  marry  again  if  she  wanted — one  of  those  chaps 
that  were  always  around.  Certainly  he  seemed  to  owe  it  to 
Mabel  to  take  himself  out  of  her  way,  and  there  was  no  other 
way  to  do  it  but  this.  He  had  given  her  enough  trouble — 
why  should  his  spoiled  life  go  on  spoiling  hers? 

The  more  he  thought  of  it  the  more  he  saw  that  it  was  the 
best  thing  to  do.  The  best  thing  he  could  possibly  do  would 
be  to  go  out  quietly  and  drown  himself  before  people  were 
about.  Of  course  he  knew  that  it  was  wrong — "thou  shalt 
not  kill."  But  he  felt  he  had  no  right  to  scruple  at  any  wrong- 
doing which  would  be  a  deliverance  to  those  who  still  had 
their  lives  to  live  and  their  souls  to  save.  His  life  was  lived 
and  his  soul  was  lost — it  could  not  make  any  difference  to 
him  what  he  did,  he  could  not  be  more  than  damned.  Indeed 
he  might  be  better  off  in  hell  than  he  was  now,  since  perhaps  the 
pain  and  horror  of  the  burning  city  might  keep  him  from 
thinking  such  a  lot  about  the  love  of  God.  .  .  . 

His  mind  was  practically  made  up,  except  for  a  faint  protest 
of  fear.  For  some  reason  he  hated  the  thought  of  the  physical 
struggle  of  death — it  loomed  larger  than  the  terrors  beyond 
it.  Also  he  found  that  he  shrank  piteously  from  the  thought 
of  leaving  Clem.  After  all,  his  brother  represented  so  much 
sympathy  and  comfort,  and  their  parting  would  be  for  ever. 
There  was  no  thought  of  a  happy  reunion  to  soften  the  wrench 
of  farewell.  Clem  would  go  on  living  his  happy  life  till  his 
time  came  to  go  to  heaven — as  would  Polly  and  Mabel  and 
Nat  and  all  of  them — he  would  never  see  any  of  them  again. 
For  during  the  last  months  Robert's  circle  of  wrath  had  nar- 


290  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

rowed  imperceptibly,  till  at  last  it  held  only  himself — every- 
one else  he  saw  basking  in  the  warm  rays  of  God's  love,  he 
alone  was  cast  out — for  his  sins — as  he  deserved. 

He  stiffened  himself — his  scruples  were  now  only  selfish 
and  must  be  overcome.  The  best  thing  to  do  was  to  act  at 
once.  "What  thou  doest,  do  quickly."  The  first  faint  glimmer 
of  dawn  had  come  into  the  sky.  He  must  not  wait,  or  people 
would  be  about.  Should  he  not  go  out  at  all,  but  hang  himself 
on  the  hook  behind  the  door  as  old  Mus'  Piper  of  Copt  Hall 
had  done  ten  years  ago?  No,  that  would  be  horrible  for  those 
who  found  him — Mrs.  Piper  had  fallen  down  in  a  fit.  He  had 
much  better  drown  himself — that  made  the  least  trouble  of 
all,  and  people  said  it  was  an  easy  death  to  die  .  .  .  queer 
that  he  should  mind  the  mere  physical  act  of  dying  so  much. 
He  had  better  drown  himself  in  the  pond.  The  Rother  was 
scarcely  wide  enough — he  might  lose  his  self-command  and 
struggle  out;  but  once  he  had  walked  into  the  middle  of 
Bodingmares  pond  .  .  .  like  most  men  of  his  class  and  neigh- 
bourhood, he  could  not  swim,  so  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  find 
a  sufficiency  of  water.  But  the  cows  drank  in  Bodingmares 
pond,  and  if  his  body  wasn't  found  quickly  he  might  poison 
the  water  for  them.  He  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  the 
kindly,  sweet-mouthed  cows  he  had  milked  and  tended  drinlc- 
ing  their  death  through  him.  .  .  .  He  must  leave  a  paper  with 
directions  where  to  find  his  body — also  there  were  one  or  two 
other  things  he  would  like  to  say  .  .  .  and  bits  of  things  he 
would  like  people  to  have. 

He  rose  stiffly  from  his  knees  and  hunted  for  pencil  and 
paper.  There  was  a  pencil  in  the  pocket  of  his  coat,  but  he 
could  not  find  any  paper — he  must  use  the  flyleaf  of  the 
book  Clem  had  lent  him — a  story  called  "The  Croftcn 
Cousins,"  which  Clem  had  given  him  years  ago  as  a  prize  in 
the  Sunday  school,  and  which  he  let  Robert  take  up  to  bed 
with  him  in  case  he  was  awake  and  miserable  during  the  night. 
It  seemed  a  pity  to  write  on  it — but  he  would  only  write  in 
pencil,  so  Clem  could  rub  it  out. 

There  was  not  much  to  write,  for  the  testator  had  very 
little  to  dispose  of.    The  money  realized  by  the  sale  at  Cam- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  291 

panj^'s  Hatch  had  been  given  to  Mabel,  and  owing  to  her  claims 
he  had  saved  nothing  from  his  wages.  Re  had  a  pair  of  new 
boots  which  he  wanted  Clem  to  have — they  would  be  much 
too  big  for  him,  but  he  could  stuff  paper  into  the  toes;  and 
he  wanted  Mus'  Beeman  to  have  his  Bible.  His  watch  and 
chain,  which  had  belonged  to  his  father,  he  left  to  Polly  for 
the  baby.  He  then  put  the  book  on  the  dressing-table,  laying 
a  brush  across  it  to  keep  it  open. 

Colours  were  now  beginning  to  creep  out  of  the  dawn — 
pale,  lightless  colours,  green,  violet  and  rose,  faint  and  dull 
in  the  sky  and  in  the  garden.  The  cherry  tree  no  longer  hung 
in  the  shadows,  but  lifted  its  white  blossom  from  the  dark 
delicate  stem.  Robert's  throat  tightened.  Those  white  spines 
lifted  into  the  soft,  flower-scented  dusk  seemed  still  for  some 
unaccountable  reason  to  reproach  him — they  were  like  Aaron's 
rod,  bearing  buds  and  blossom. 

He  turned  back  into  the  room,  and  put  on  his  coat.  His 
Bible  lay  on  the  chair  by  the  bedside,  and  he  took  it  in  his 
hands.  The  Flaming  Judgment  .  .  .  should  he  look  and  see 
what  it  had  to  say? — it  never  had  a  message  for  him  now. 
He  opened  it  mechanically:  "Who  hath  taken  his  counsel 
against  Tyre,  the  crowning  city,  whose  merchants  are  princes, 
whose  traffickers  are  the  honourable  of  the  earth?  The  Lord 
of  Hosts  hath  purposed  it,  to  stain  the  pride  of  all  glory." 
That  was  the  sort  of  thing  he  always  hit  upon  if  he  opened 
the  book  now — it  had  no  message  for  him.  He  idly  fluttered 
the  leaves,  and  they  rolled  over,  thumbed  and  greasy  with  the 
agony  and  ecstasy  of  months.  What  was  this  on  the  flyleaf: 
"I,  Albert  Slater,  have  taken  the  pledge  not  to  drink  any 
strong  drink  or  liquor  for  one  month  from  to-day,  God  helping 
me." 

That  was  the  chap  he  had  met  on  his  first  missionary 
journey — on  his  way  home  from  Goudhurst.  He  wondered 
what  had  happened  to  him — he  hadn't  thought  much  of  him 
since.  Had  he  kept  that  pledge?  He  would  never  know  .  .  . 
that  was  the  chap  who  had  first  taught  him  to  sleep  out — he 
remembered  that  doss  under  the  haystack  by  Cockshot  Farm. 
He  had  had   many  nights  in  the  open  since  then  .  .  .  oh, 


292  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

that  was  the  summer  he  could  not  bear  to  think  of — that 
wonderful  summer  of  the  lanes  and  fields  and  villages.  He 
had  felt  the  love  of  God  in  his  heart,  filling  him  with  joy — 
he  had  been  the  man  without  the  wedding  garment  enjoying 
himself  at  the  wedding,  during  the  brief  time  that  elapsed  be- 
fore he  was  cast  out. 

He  put  the  Bible  down.  Mus'  Beeman  would  perhaps  value 
it,  and  be  sorry  for  him  occasionally — Mus'  Beeman  whose 
wedding  garment  was  so  exceedingly  starched  and  white.  .  .  . 
He  stood  looking  down  at  Nat.  Should  he  kiss  him?  No — 
he  might  wake  up.  He  had  better  go  off  with  as  little  ado  as 
possible.  He  wished  that  the  dawn  and  the  soaring  cherry- 
tree  did  not  make  him  feel  so  sad  ...  he  would  be  away 
from  them  soon  .  .  .  away  from  their  reproach.  The  little 
wind  was  rising  and  shaking  the  leaded  panes  of  the  window. 

§  28 

He  took  his  boots  off  to  go  downstairs,  then  sat  on  the 
doorstep  and  put  them  on  again,  laboriously  lacing  them  up 
as  if  he  had  not  only  two  furlongs  more  of  life.  The  dawn 
had  now  begun  to  glow — it  was  no  longer  white  like  the  cherry- 
tree;  first  the  sky  kindled  in  long  ruddy  slats,  then  an  amber 
light  trailed  up  the  Rother  marshes,  and  burned  on  the  river 
.  .  .  the  wind  rose  again,  shaking  the  trees. 

Robert  went  out  into  the  field  at  the  back  of  the  house. 
From  the  top  of  it  he  could  see  the  homestead  of  Bodingmares 
among  the  haystacks  and  barns.  The  moment  before  sunrise 
was  so  intensely  clear  that  he  could  see  the  very  tiles,  worn 
and  mottled  with  age  and  weather.  In  the  strange  sunless 
gleam  and  the  utter  stillness  it  was  like  some  mirage,  some 
house  in  a  dream.  Beyond  it,  a  little  to  the  east,  was  a  clump 
of  willow  and  alder,  surrounding  the  pond;  and  far  away,  but 
clear  with  that  peculiar  watery  clearness  which  means  rain 
in  the  Rother  Valley,  he  could  see  the  Kentish  hills,  check- 
ered with  fields  and  sprawled  with  woods.  Then  suddenly 
the  sun  rose  and  swept  up  the  fields  in  a  soaring  light — the 
watercourses  gleamed,  the  windows  of  farmhouses  burned,  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  293 

wood  seemed  to  change  colour,  and  the  subdued  chatter  of 
birds  among  the  trees  swelled  into  a  song.  A  blackbird's 
liquid  note  sounded  close  to  Robert  in  a  hawthorn  tree,  for 
some  reason  it  seemed  to  fill  him  with  a  heart-breaking  sur- 
prise. .  .  .  The  sense  of  reproach  grew;  he  had  thought  till 
then  that  Clem  was  the  only  living  thing  he  would  be  really 
sorrj'^  to  leave,  but  now  he  saw  that  the  wrench  was  also  to 
be  with  this  quiet  country  of  the  Rother  Valley,  which  all  his 
life  had  been  so  much  to  him  and  yet  so  strangely  little. 

As  he  walked  across  the  big  field  in  the  sunrise,  with  his 
shadow  running  before  him  towards  death,  he  found  himself 
wishing  that  he  had  loved  the  country  better.  As  a  boy  and 
young  man  he  had  preferred  the  public-house  to  the  fields, 
and  had  sought  the  lanes  on  summer  nights  only  for  the  sake 
of  som.e  girl  that  he  hugged,  .  .  .  Then  when  he  had  done 
with  public-houses  and  girls  he  still  had  not  turned  to  the 
fields — because  he  mistrusted  them,  because  they  were  the 
creatures  and  he  sought  the  creator.  Yet  the  mistrusted  earth 
had  been  his  comfort  all  through  that  wonderful  year  .  .  . 
memories  came  to  him  of  footprints  in  the  white  dust  of 
Kentish  lanes,  of  big  fields  tilted  to  the  sunset,  of  ponds  like 
moons  in  the  night,  of  dim  shapes  of  villages  in  a  twilight 
thickened  and  yellowed  by  the  chaffy  mist  of  harvest,  of  the 
spilt  glory  of  big  solemn  stars,  the  mystery  and  the  wonder  of 
sounds  at  night — sounds  of  animals  creeping,  sounds  of  water, 
sounds  of  birds.  .  .  . 

The  procession  of  his  thoughts  moved  fast  under  the  heavy 
crust  of  bewilderment.  Outwardly  he  still  went  stupidly,  al- 
most brutishly,  to  his  ignoble  death  in  a  farmhouse  pond;  but 
inwardly  his  mind  was  seething,  full  of  memories,  desires, 
tangled  ends — which  were  now  beginning  mysteriously  to  be 
sorted  by  some  hidden  process  working  gradually  nearer  the 
surface. 

The  pond  was  about  two  furlongs  from  Pookwell,  cupped 
in  some  alders  and  sallows.  The  big  yellow  flags  were  opening 
now  among  the  reeds,  and  a  yellow  light  gleamed  from  the 
sunrise  on  the  surface  of  the  water.  It  was  all  lit  up  and 
aflame,  and,  as  Robert  looked  down  on  it  from  the  field,  it 


294  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

seemed  to  join  in  the  reproach  that  had  first  come  to  him  on 
the  hanging  whiteness  of  the  cherry-tree,  and  now  seemed 
to  come  from  every  tree,  from  every  lane,  from  every  hedge- 
row, leaf  and  flower,  from  the  hidden  song  of  the  birds,  and  the 
fanning,  flooding  sunrise. 

"Are  you  going  to  drown  yourself,  Robert  Fuller?  Are  you 
going  to  be  dead  whilst  we're  alive?  Is  your  body  going  to 
be  green  and  slimy  at  the  bottom  of  that  pond?  Aun't  you 
going  to  milk  the  cows  this  morning?  Aun't  you  going  to  light 
the  kitchen  fire?  Doan't  you  want  to  see  the  sun  any  more? 
Aun't  you  going  to  dress  your  baby?  Maybe  he'll  waake  up 
and  cry  now  he's  aloan." 

He  stood  at  the  edge  of  the  pond,  looking  hunted  and 
ashamed.  The  reproach  seemed  to  swell  all  round  him,  from 
the  fields  and  from  the  sunshine — the  reproach  of  beauty  crying 
after  the  blind. 

"All  your  life  I've  bin  here  fur  you  to  see,  and  you've  scarce 
ever  looked  at  me  till  now;  and  now  you  look — and  you're 
gone,  surelye." 

"But  I  doan't  want  you — I  doan't  care  how  beautiful  you 
are.    I  doan't  want  naun  wudout  my  God." 

"I  am  your  God.    Doan't  you  know  me?" 

The  fields  and  the  farms  and  the  sunrise  were  calling  him 
now  wath  the  voice  he  had  heard  in  the  Throws  chapel — the 
voice  that  had  tormented  and  delighted  and  enraged  and  made 
a  fool  of  him  for  years. 

"I  am  your  God — doan't  you  know  me?  Did  you  think 
I  was  away  up  in  heaven,  watching  you  from  a  gurt  way  off? 
Didn't  you  know  that  I've  bin  with  you  all  the  time? — that 
every  time  you  looked  out  on  the  fields  or  into  your  kind 
brother's  eyes  or  at  your  baby  asleep  in  his  bed  you  looked 
on  Me?" 

Robert's  temples  were  hammering,  and  the  big  pulses  in 
his  neck  were  throbbing  heavily.  The  deadening  weight  of 
stupefaction  seemed  gone — and  instead  of  it  he  could  feel  his 
heart  breaking.  .  .  . 

"Why  do  you  run  away  from  me  and  hide  like  a  stupid 
fox  that  doan't  know  its  own  earth?     Why  woan't  you  look 


' 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  295 

and  see  how  beautiful  and  homely  and  faithful  and  loving 
I  am.  You  can't  get  away  from  me.  Even  if  you  go  down 
into  hell,  I  am  there  also.  I'm  a  part  of  your  sorrows,  as  you're 
a  part  of  Mine." 

"But,  Lord,  you've  cast  me  out." 

"How  could  I  ever  cast  you  out?  I'm  plighted  to  you  wud 
the  troth  of  a  mother  to  her  child.  You  lost  Me  in  the  mists 
of  your  own  mind.  ..." 

On  the  slime  at  the  edge  of  the  pond  there  were  the  marks 
of  birds'  feet — tiny  claws  impressed  on  the  soft  sand.  .  .  . 
Robert  looked  at  them  and  trembled.  Then  he  lifted  his  face 
to  the  sky,  so  that  the  sunrise  fell  on  it,  pouring  out  of  the 
clouds,  striking  up  from  the  broken  ripples  of  the  pond.  His 
face  was  all  smeared  and  dabbled  with  the  sweat  of  his  agony, 
and  it  shone  in  the  sunrise,  catching  it  like  the  water,  till  it 
was  transfigured  and  gleaming. 

"0  Lord!"  he  cried,  "O  Lordl" 

§  29 

"Clem,  Bob's  never  lighted  the  fire." 

Polly's  grumbling  voice  came  up  the  stairs  to  Clem  as  he 
hitched  on  his  trousers. 

"Maybe  he  .ilun't  down  yit." 

"It's  gone  six." 

"Reckon  he'd  sleep  sound,  after  gitting  that  tooth  out." 

Clem  strode  across  the  two  feet  of  landing,  and  opened 
Bob's  door.  The  room  was  full  of  sunshine,  spilling  over  the 
bed,  in  which  the  baby  lay  contentedly  awake,  waving  his 
arms. 

"He  aun't  up  here — he  mun  have  gone  out." 

"Well,  it's  the  fust  time  he's  disremembered  the  fire,  and 
he's  never  brung  my  coals  in,  nuther." 

Something  smote  Clem. 

"I'll  help  you,"  he  mumbled,  and  went  downstairs. 

He  carried  in  Polly's  coals  for  her  and  helped  her  lay  and 
light  the  fire,  then  he  undertook  to  watch  it  while  she  ran  up  to 
dress  the  baby. 


296  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

A  minute  later  he  heard  a  scream: 

"Maaster!" 

"Wot  is  it?" 

"Bob's  a-gone  and  drownded  himself  .  .  .  he's  written  it 
here.  .  .  .  Oh,  wotsumdever  shall  we  do?" 

Clem  ran  upstairs,  trembling  and  sick.  He  found  her  stand- 
ing by  the  chest  of  drawers,  holding  a  book  in  her  hand. 
The  fly-leaf  was  scrawled  over  with  Bob's  disorderly  hand- 
writing. 

"I  don't  want  to  make  you  miserable  any  more,  so  will 
drownd  myself.  It  is  an  easy  death.  So  do  not  grieve  for  me, 
dear  Clem  and  Polly.    But  I  have  pains  in  my  head " 

"Oh,  it's  like  wot  they  always  say  when  they  do  it  in  the 
newspapers,"  cried  Polly  hysterically. 

Clem  stood  with  his  arm  round  his  wife's  shoulder,  leaning 
on  her  with  all  his  weight,  so  that  she  had  to  prop  herself 
against  the  chest  of  drawers. 

"Oh,  doan't  taake  on  so,  pore  soul,"  she  comforted;  "reckon 
it's  all  fur  the  best.  He's  happy  now  ...  he  says  we're  to 
have  Baby  .  .  .  and  he's  a-gone  and  left  his  Bible  to  Mus' 
Beeman.  .  .  ." 

"Then  he  can  go  and  taake  it  to  him  himself!"  cried  Clem 
furiously,  "fur  thur  he  is  coming  in  at  the  geate." 

"Who?    Mus'  Beeman?" 

"No;  Bob." 

Clem  dashed  down  to  the  door,  shaking  with  fury  and  ex- 
citement. Reaction  had  swung  him  from  grief  to  rage,  and 
for  the  first  time  Robert  faced  his  brother  crimson  and  splut- 
tering with  indignation. 

"Wot  d'you  mean  by  it?"  shouted  Clem,  "wot  d'you  mean 
by  scaring  us  lik  this,  and  then  walking  in  at  the  geate  as 
if  naun  had  happened?  Reckon  you'll  breake  our  hearts 
wud  all  your  ways." 

Bob  stood  staring  at  him  with  his  mouth  open. 

"Come  in.  Bob,"  said  Polly  tearfully.  "You  mun  taake  off 
your  clothes  sinst  they're  wet." 

"They're  bone  dry,"  ejaculated  Clement. 

"I'm  sorry,"  stammered  Bob;  "I'm  middling  sorry  fur  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  297 

fright  I've  guv  you.  I  dud  my  best  to  git  back  in  time  to 
stop  you  seeing  wot  I'd  wrote." 

"Then  you  didn't  never  drownd  yourself!"  said  Polly. 

"Reckon  I  didn't.  I  went  out  to  drownd  myself  right  enough, 
but  when  I  got  there  the  Lord  showed  me  His  beauty." 

There  was  a  short,  heavily  charged  silence.  Clem  and  Polly 
looked  at  each  other. 

"He  showed  me  as  all  the  warld  wur  His,  and  me  along 
wud  it,  and  as  how  He'd  never  let  me  go  .  .  .  and  as  all  this 
vrother  of  mine  wur  just  as  when  you  waake  up  wud  your 
head  under  the  bed-clothes  on  a  sunny  morning  and  think 
it's  night." 

"Then  you  mean  to  say  .  .  .  you're  telling  me.  Bob,  as  you 
doan't  believe  any  longer  as  you're  lost?" 

"Twur  I  as  lost  Him,  not  Him  wot  lost  me — reckon  He 
wur  thur  calling  after  me  all  the  time,  and  I  wudn't  hear, 
being  that  silly.  .  .  .  It's  more  lik  fur  a  sheep  to  bite  her  lamb's 
head  off,  or  fur  a  woman  to  throw  her  child  out  of  the  winder, 
than  fur  Him  to  cast  out  my  soul.  Oh,  I've  bin  in  hell  .  .  . 
but  He  wur  thur  too,  along  of  me,  and  I  never  knew  it.  .  .  ." 

"Then,  does  this  all  mean  as  you've  bin  converted  agaun?" 
asked  Clem  dubiously. 

"Reckon  I  wur  convarted  more'n  eighteen  months  ago — 
leastways  I  guv  myself  to  God  then,  and  though  I  sinned  He 
never  cast  me  off.  But  all  the  time  I'd  some  tedious  silly 
ideas  in  my  head  about  Him,  fur  till  this  very  morning  I 
thought  as  He  wur  an  angry  God,  a  Flaming  Judgment,  as 
you  might  say.  But  now  I  see  as  how  He's  love  .  .  .  and 
He's  beauty  .  .  .  He's  in  the  fields  maaking  the  flowers  grow 
and  the  birds  sing  and  the  ponds  have  that  lovely  liddle  white 
flower  growing  on  'em  .  .  .  and  He's  a  lot  more  homely  than 
foalkses  ud  think.  .  .  ." 

Clem  noticed  that  his  brother's  hands  were  trembling,  and 
he  stood  with  his  chin  lifted,  in  one  of  those  moods  of  exalta- 
tion which  used  to  be  common  of  old,  but  now  had  not  visited 
him  for  months. 

"Wot  showed  you  this,  Bob — all  of  a  suddint?" 

"I  dunno.     I  just  stood  there,  and  something  seemed  to 


298  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

git  broken  in  my  head — and  then  I  thought  all  different.  I 
sim  to  hear  a  voice  spikking  to  me — not  a  tar'ble  voice,  nor 
a  voice  lik  a  minister's,  but  a  sort  of  voice  lik  wot  they  have 
in  these  parts,  all  quiet  and  rough.  And  it  said  as  God  aun't 
shut  away  from  us  up  in  heaven,  but  He's  down  here — He's 
in  the  fields  wud  the  young  corn  and  wud  the  animals  caring 
fur  their  young,  and  He's  in  you  and  me — thur  aun't  no  gitting 
away  from  Him.  .  .  .  And  then  I  thought  of  the  Scripture 
wot  says,  'If  I  go  down  into  hell,  Thou  art  there  also,'  and  I 
saw  as  that  ways  I  cud  never  go  to  hell,  sinst  the  only  hell  I 
wur  scared  of  wur  being  wudout  God." 

"Well,"  said  Polly  briskly,  "you  might  have  thought  of  all 
that  a  bit  earlier,  and  saaved  yourself  and  everybody  else  a 
lot  of  trouble.  Howsumdever,  sinst  you've  come  to  your  senses, 
so  much  the  better,  and  you  mun  help  me  git  the  breakfast 


now." 


Robert  obeyed  her  readily.  Clem  remained  standing  in  the 
doorway,  staring  into  the  lane  without  seeing.  For  a  long 
time  he  stood  leaning  against  the  door-post  with  his  arms  folded 
over  his  chest.  Once  he  lit  his  pipe  and  let  it  go  out  again. 
When  Polly  had  called  him  twice,  the  second  time  rather 
roughly,  he  went  in  to  breakfast. 

At  breakfast  Bob  held  forth  in  still  greater  detail  on  his 
wonderful  experiences.  Reticence  had  always  been  but  a 
fugitive  quality  in  him,  and  he  enlarged  on  his  adventures 
at  the  pond  side  till  only  the  limitations  of  language,  especially 
his,  prevented  Clem  and  Polly  from  knowing  as  much  about 
them  as  he  did.  This  new  set  of  experiences  was  about  as 
unintelligible  to  them  as  the  old,  but  they  saw  that  he  was  now 
happy,  that  he  had  passed  out  of  his  despair,  so  they  were 
thankful — and  as  sympathetic  as  they  knew  how. 

"I  feel  as  if  I  cud  justabout  never  pay  Him  back  fur  all 
He's  done  fur  me,"  said  Robert.  "Reckon  I  mun  tell  all  men 
as  He's  a  God  of  love  and  everythink  lovely." 

"Now,  Bob,"  said  Clem  seriously,  "you  mun  let  other  people 
aloan.  You  can't  go  every  time  you're  convarted  preaching 
the  Gospel  about  the  plaace." 

"But  reckon  I  preached  a  hard  Gospel  the  fust  time:   I 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  299 

preached  as  Christ  died  fur  the  Elect,  and  as  everyone  else  ud 
burn  in  hell.  Reckon  I  wur  taaking  away  God's  character  all 
the  time,  and  I  mun  go  and  maake  it  right  agiiun." 

"You  let  it  alone  fur  the  present,  anyways." 

"But  I  can't  let  it  alone  when  I've  spuck  agaunst  His  love. 
I  mun  go  and  tell  Mus'  Beeman,  too,  as  he's  bin  mistaaken." 

"You  may  go  and  tell  Mus'  Beeman  anything  you  like — 
I'll  give  you  a  day  off  to  do  it — but  you  mun  let  other  foalkses 
alone.  Fur  one  thing,  they  woan't  stand  it  from  you  at  present; 
you  mun  remember  as  the  neighbours  are  all  set  agaunst  you, 
Bob." 

Bob  held  his  tongue,  but  Clem  still  felt  rather  anxious  about 
him.  His  brother's  tendency  to  make  a  scandal  of  everything 
that  happened  to  himself,  good  or  bad,  must  be  reckoned  with, 
and  he  knew  the  dangers  of  that  thrilling  exalted  mood,  which 
he  could  see  Bob  was  in  now,  in  spite  of  the  differences. 

"We  mun  kip  an  eye  on  him  fur  a  day  or  two,"  he  said 
to  Polly  afterwards.  "He's  that  stuck  on  telling  everybody 
everythink." 

"He'll  be  a  middling  gurt  owl  if  he  goes  and  starts  all  that 
agaun." 

"That's  wot  I'm  saying — the  whole  neighbourhood's  set 
agaunst  him,  as  is  only  natural;  they  woan't  stand  no  more 
of  that  from  him." 

"Surelye — and  dud  you  hear  as  Hannah  Iden's  back?" 

"No— is  she?" 

"Yes,  her  and  Darius.  Maudie  Pont  toald  me;  if  Bob  sets 
eyes  on  her,  maybe  we'll  have  all  that  started  agaun  too." 

"Bob's  shut  of  her,  I'm  certain  sure." 

"I  aun't.  You  can't  be  certain  sure  of  anythink  wud  a  man 
like  Bob.  I  shudn't  care  fur  him  to  see  too  much  of  her  even 
now." 

"You  think  lik  a  woman,  missus — you  think  as  one  of  us 
can  never  git  praaperly  shut  of  one  of  you.  But  I  tell  you 
Bob's  a  good  feller,  and  though  I  wish  as  his  religion  wur  a 
bit  quieter,  I  reckon  it's  a  good  religion  and  uU  kip  him 
straight." 

"Then  it  ull  do  now  wot  it  dudn't  do  before.    Howsumdever, 


300  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 


JL 


m  glad  he's  got  his  spirits  back  and  sees  things  a  bit  more 
natural.  Fust  he  dud  naun  but  grieve  'cos  everybody  wur 
going  to  hell  except  himself,  and  then  he  grieved  'cos  nobody 
wur  going  to  hell  but  him;  he  sims  to  have  settled  things  more 
reasonable  now.  But  as  you  say,  we  mun  kip  an  eye  on  him, 
and  it  wouldn't  be  bad,  I  reckon,  if  he  stopped  by  me  this 
morning  and  picked  over  the  fruit  fur  the  jam." 


§  30 

Clem  was  glad  to  leave  Bob  with  his  wife.  He  would  be 
too  busy  that  morning  to  keep  an  eye  on  him,  and  he  could 
trust  Polly  to  see  that  his  brother  did  not  make  a  fool  of 
himself  in  any  way.  If  only  Bob  would  behave  himself  and 
keep  quiet,  things  might  take  a  turn  for  the  better  now. 
Anyhow  he  was  happy  and  rational  again — more  rational  than 
he  had  ever  been  since  his  conversion.  If  only  he  would  go 
on  like  this,  perhaps  in  time,  when  she  saw  what  an  improved 
man  her  husband  was,  Mabel  might  think  of  coming  back.  .  .  . 

Thus  Clem's  imagination  painted  some  glowing  pictures 
that  morning  at  his  work,  and  during  a  tramp  he  had  to  make 
into  the  village,  to  see  Pepper  about  a  horse — pictures  which 
were  one  and  all  darkened  when  he  came  back  to  the  farm, 
and  found  Polly  waiting  for  him  there. 

"She's  come  after  Mus'  Robert,"  said  Pickdick.  "I  said  as 
you'd  a-gone  into  the  town,  and  maybe  he  wur  wud  you." 

Clem  groaned. 

"I  haven't  seen  the  chap.  Why  cudn't  you  have  kipt  a 
better  eye  on  him,  missus?" 

"I  did  but  run  out  to  see  after  the  eggs  whilst  the  water 
wur  boiling,  and  he  wur  picking  over  the  liddle  green  goose- 
berries— then  when  I  come  back,  he  wur  a-gone,  having  got 
through  wud  the  picking;  so  I  thought  maybe  he'd  be  up  at 
the  plaace." 

"He  aun't  bin  araound  here  this  marnun,"  said  Pickdick. 

"Then  I  can't  think  where's  he's  a-got  to." 

"I  can,  surelye,"  said  Clem  with  another  groan. 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  301 

He  had  remembered  that  to-day  was  Salehurst  market, 

"WTiur,  then?" 

"He's  a-gone  to  Salehurst,  Hk  the  hem  fool  as  he  is.  He'll 
be  telling  them  all  about  this  new  conversion  of  his'n.  Bless 
my  soul,  missus — why  cudn't  you  have  looked  after  him?" 

"I  did  but  go  out  five  minnut — and  I  never  thought  as 
mortal  man  cud  have  picked  over  them  gooseberries  so  quick." 

"Well,  I  mun  to  go  after  him,  anyways;  foalkes  woan't  stand 
his  preaching  at  'em  after  all  that's  happened — maybe  they'll 
do  him  some  harm." 

"Wait  and  have  your  dinner,  maaster." 

"No — I'll  go  now,  and  maake  him  behave  sensible  if  I  can. 
He's  lik  a  child  some  ways,  is  Bob,  and  I'm  afeared  he'll  git 
himself  into  trouble." 

He  started  off  at  once.  The  day  was  hot,  but  he  walked 
fast,  and  had  soon  reached  the  cross-roads  outside  Salehurst. 
It  was  only  one  of  the  smaller  markets,  and  so  far  he  had  not 
met  anyone,  but  at  the  Throws  he  saw  a  trap  coming  towards 
him.    The  driver  hailed  him  from  the  distance: 

"That  you,  Mus'  Fuller?" 

"Surelye,  Mus'  Cox." 

"I  wur  driving  out  to  fetch  you — your  brother's  started  his 
preaching  agaun,  and  I'm  afeared  as  there'll  be  trouble." 

"I  wur  just  a-coming  after  him  myself." 

"Then  jump  in  and  I'll  drive  you." 

Clem  put  his  foot  on  the  wheel  and  sprang  up.  Cox  turned 
the  horse's  head  towards  Salehurst. 

"I  knew  as  you  wur  the  only  chap  as  cud  stop  him,  so  I 
thought  as  I'd  go  fur  you  at  wunst.  I  did  my  best,  but  he 
wur  set  on  gitting  up  and  telling  'em  all  some  wonderful 
new  thing  as  had  happened  to  him;  he  never  seemed  to  think 
that  foalkses  woan't  stand  that  sort  of  thing  from  the  likes 
of  him — begging  your  pardon.", 

"Bob's  a  valiant  chap,"  said  Clem,  "but  he  aun't  got  all 
the  sense  that  he  might." 

"Seemingly  he's  got  religion  agiiun,"  said  Cox.  "I'd  bin 
toald  as  he'd  a-done  wud  all  that  sort  of  thing,  having  a  notion 
as  he  wur  lost.    But  now  he  wur  saying  as  God's  showed  Him- 


302  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

self  to  him  agaun  as  the  God  of  love  and  I  know  not  wot  else 
beside.    Folkses  woan't  stand  it." 

"Had  they  begun  to  play  up  rough?" 

''Oh,  only  a  few  that  wur  hollering  at  him.  .  .  .  But  them 
Egyptians  are  about  agaun;  I  cud  see  Darius  Ripley  there 
listening,  and  you  know  as  Darius  said  as  he'd  git  even  wud  Bob 
Fuller  for  gitting  him  seven  months  in  quod?" 

"I  never  heard  it;  and  anyways  Bob  didn't  git  him  locked 
up — it  wur  fur  dog-stealing." 

"Yes,  but  if  Bob  hadn't  maade  all  that  row  and  brung  in 
the  police,  Ripley  ud  never  have  bin  caught.  It  wur  Bob's 
trouble  wot  showed  the  police  where  he  wur.  Reckon  if  there's 
any  skylarking,  Darius  uU  maake  it  wuss — and  there's  other 
Egyptians  about  too." 

Clem  looked  scared. 

"D'you  think  they'll — they'd  never  do  him  any  harm?" 

"Oh,  doan't  you  vrother — all  they'd  do  at  the  wust  ud  be 
to  give  him  a  ducking." 

"I  doan't  want  Bob  to  git  a  ducking." 

"Maybe  we'll  be  in  time  to  stop  it — not  as  we  can  do  any- 
thing if  the  trouble's  begun,  but  if  they're  only  jeering  and 
hollering,  and  you  git  Bob  to  give  over.  .  .  ." 

"He  woan't  give  over  fur  me.  .  .  .  Wot's  that?" 

"Where?" 

"Down  on  the  Marsh — yonder — it's  lik  a  lot  of  folkses  run- 
ning." 

"That's  it — that's  them.  Reckon  we're  too  late,  and  they've 
got  your  brother." 

He  pulled  the  horse  up  violently,  and  they  both  jumped 
out  of  the  trap.  They  had  just  reached  the  bridge  at  the  foot 
of  the  station  hill,  where  the  Rother  runs  under  the  road  and 
turns  northward  towards  the  River  Dudwell.  Two  or  three 
furlongs  away  a  little  eddying  group  of  people  was  moving 
over  the  marsh.  The  centre  was  very  close,  a  dense  dark 
mass,  but  the  edges  sprayed  and  scattered,  contracted  and  ex- 
panded, changing  its  shape  from  a  circle  to  a  long  ellipse. 

Clem  had  never  run  so  fast  in  his  life — he  left  Cox,  who 
was  a  trifle  unwieldy,    far  behind.     He  caught  up  with  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  303 

crowd  while  it  was  still  some  way  from  the  spot  where  the 
Rother  spreads  and  deepens  for  Bugshull  IVIill.  They  were 
evidently  bound  for  the  mill-pond;  Clem  could  hear  no  cries, 
but  a  confused  murmur,  and  a  heavy,  running  sound  ...  as 
when  the  Salehurst  United  charge  up  the  field  at  a  football 
match  and  the  Etchingham  goal  goes  down  before  them.  .  .  . 
At  first  he  experienced  a  certain  relief  to  find  that  they  were 
so  few;  after  all,  the  respectable  farmers  of  Salehurst  market 
would  not  take  part  in  such  an  orgie,  even  though  they  might 
allow  it — but  as  he  drew  even  with  them  he  realized  that  it 
would  be  about  as  hopeless  for  him  to  tackle  twenty  men  as 
two  hundred.  Their  numbers  were  made  up  of  the  rougher 
elements  of  the  market — gipsies  (among  whom,  however,  he 
did  not  see  Darius),  young  rowdy  labourers  and  farm-boys, 
and  one  or  two  of  the  smaller  farmers'  sons. 

"Stop!"  cried  Clem.    "Stop!" 

No  one  took  any  notice,  and  he  could  only  run  beside  the 
others,  panting  and  imploring.  The  centre  was  just  a  closely 
knotted  mass — there  was  no  struggle;  evidently  Robert  was 
submitting  to  his  fate,  either  as  a  matter  of  policy  or,  more 
likely,  of  conscience. 

"Stop!"  gasped  Clem.  "Let  him  go.  He  aun't  done  you 
no  harm.    You're  a  hem  set  of  bullies." 

"You  hoald  your  jaw,"  said  Stan  Shovell,  running  near,  "or 
maybe  we'll  chuck  you  in  after  him." 

"Adone  do,  Mus'  Clem,"  broke  in  Cox,  who  had  now 
reached  them.  "You  can't  meddle.  They  woan't  do  your 
brother  any  harm  if  he  goes  quiet." 

"They'll  drownd  him." 

"No,  they  woan't — they'll  only  give  him  a  bit  of  a  ducking, 
as  ull  do  him  all  the  good  in  the  warld,  between  ourselves." 

"Oh,  Lard!"  panted  Clem.    "Oh,  Lard!" 

They  had  reached  the  pool  at  last — the  sheet  of  water  that 
holds  the  reflection  of  Bugshull  Mill  and  its  Lombardy  poplars. 
The  wheel  was  not  working,  so  there  was  no  danger  of  Robert 
being  sucked  under  and  drowned,  but  Clem  was  frantic  at 
the  thought  of  what  was  to  happen.  He  suddenly  caught 
sight  of  his  brother,  a  stumbling  dishevelled  figure  .  .  .  and 


304  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

then,  to  his  horror,  Robert  began  to  struggle.  The  sight  of 
the  stretch  of  cold  water  of  unknown  depth  filled  him  with 
mortal  fear. 

"Lemme  go ! "  he  shrieked.    "Lemme  go ! " 

Clem  made  a  plunge  towards  him,  but  was  seized  and  held  by 
Cox  of  Haiselman's  and  Stan  Shovell.  He  fought  them  both, 
friend  and  foe,  with  the  same  fury.  Then  suddenly  there  was 
a  big  splash,  and  he  became  still. 

Silence  hung  for  an  instant.  Everyone  was  staring  at  the 
place  where  Robert  had  vanished.  The  water  spread  in  ever 
wider  eddies.  .  .  . 

''He's  drownded!"  cried  Clem. 

But  the  next  moment  Robert  appeared,  standing  up  to  his 
waist  in  water,  a  ludicrous  figure  with  his  hair  dripping  in  his 
eyes,  and  the  water  pouring  off  him  as  he  choked  and  gasped. 

There  was  a  loud  burst  of  laughter  from  the  men  on  the 
bank. 

"Now,  Robert  Fuller — ^preach  to  us  about  the  goodness  of 
God." 

"Are  you  Saaved?" 

"He's  washed,  anyway." 

"Pull  him  out  and  chuck  him  in  agaun." 

"No — he's  had  enough." 

"Three  times  is  the  dose." 

"Git  hoald  of  him  wud  your  stick,  he  can't  run  away." 

"No,  let  him  stay  thur  and  preach  to  us." 

"He  says  God's  in  everything.  Have  you  found  Him  in  the 
water,  Bob?" 

Robert  opened  his  mouth. 

"He's  going  to  begin." 

A  torrent  of  blood  suddenly  poured  from  Robert's  mouth. 

"Lard,  you've  hurt  him!" 

"Help  him  to  shore — we  mun't  kill  him." 

"It's  naun — it's  only  his  nose  bleeding." 

"No — it's  coming  from  inside.  He  shudn't  ought  to  have 
fought  so." 

Robert  struggled  slowly  through  the  water  towards  the  bank, 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  305 

seized  two  tufts  of  grass  to  pull  himself  up,  then  fell  forward 
unconscious,  still  half  in  the  water. 


§  31 

He  was  brought  home  in  Cox's  trap,  propped  up  between 
him  and  Clem.  He  said  he  felt  better,  but  by  the  time  they 
had  reached  Pookwell  his  face  was  grey.  Leaving  him  with 
Clem  and  Polly,  Cox  drove  off  to  fetch  the  doctor. 

Clem  helped  his  brother  take  off  his  wet  clothes  and  get 
into  bed.  Certain  movements  seemed  to  give  him  great  pain, 
and  Clem  was  afraid  that  something  was  broken  inside  him. 
His  own  anxiety  and  compassion  were  still  clouded  with  rage; 
he  felt  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  lose  the  impression  he 
had  had  that  day  of  his  fellow-men,  that  he  would  never  again 
be  able  to  greet  any  of  them  civilly  at  market.  It  is  true 
that  Bob's  executioners  had  been  only  a  handful  of  riff-raff, 
but  the  respectable  farmers  and  tradesmen  had  stood  by  and 
allowed  them  to  do  as  they  liked;  they  could  almost  certainly 
have  stopped  them  if  they  had  wished,  but— ^^^th  the  exception 
of  Cox — they  had  not  wished,  they  had  probably  been  glad  to 
see  Bob  Fuller  punished.  ...  "A  ducking  ull  do  him  all  the 
good  in  the  warld" — even  Cox  had  said  that. 

"Doan't  look  so  wild,  kid,"  said  Bob,  as  Clem  put  the  sheet 
over  him  with  tense,  trembling  hands.  "Reckon  it  wur  all 
meant  fur  a  joke.  I  cud  see  as  most  of  'em  wur  just  horse- 
playing  all  the  time." 

"A  valiant  joke — saum  sort  of  joke  as  a  dog  has  when  he 
worries  a  sheep." 

"Well,  it's  a  joke  wud  him,  anyway." 

"How  are  you  feeling  now,  Bob?" 

"A  bit  queer.  .  .  .  I've  got  a  pain." 

"The  doctor  ull  be  here  in  a  minnut." 

The  doctor  came  and  examined  Bob.  A  couple  of  ribs  were 
broken,  and  there  were  some  internal  injuries  besides.  The 
pain  was  becoming  more  and  more  unbearable  every  minute. 


3o6  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

and  before  he  went  the  docfor  gave  him  something  to  make  him 
go  to  sleep. 

"D'you  think  he'll  git  better  soon?"  asked  poor  Clem  when 
they  were  out  of  the  room. 

"I'm  afraid  he's  very  badly  hurt.  Of  course  I  can  say 
nothing  for  certain — he's  young  and  he's  strong — but  I  think 
I  ought  to  prepare  you  for  things  going  badly." 

"Do  you  mean  as  he'll  die?" 

"He  is  in  very  great  danger.  Will  you  and  your  wife 
undertake  to  nurse  him?  I'll  send  round  the  District  Nurse 
in  the  evening — there  may  be  need  for  injections." 

Clem  sat  down  miserably  on  the  stairs. 

"Cheer  up,"  said  the  doctor,  "he  may  pull  through." 

"It's  a  shaame — a  hem  shaame." 

"I  quite  agree,  and  if  I  were  you,  when  he  comes  roimd, 
I'd  try  and  find  out  if  he  knows  who  the  chaps  were  who 
knocked  him  about  like  this.  Someone  ought  to  go  to  jail 
for  it.    I  suppose  you  didn't  see  much?" 

"No — only  the  outside  lot.  I  saw  one  or  two  just  as  they  wur 
all  maaking  off,  after  Bob  wur  took  bad,  but  in  that  mess 
you  cudn't  tell  wot  wur  happening,  surelye." 

The  doctor  wondered  whether  he  ought  to  suggest  that  the 
patient's  wife  should  be  sent  for,  but  he  knew  the  situation  was 
delicate,  so  left  it  to  young  Fuller, 

Clem  talked  it  over  with  Polly,  and  they  decided  to  send 
for  Mabel  at  once.  In  spite  of  all,  she  was  still  Bob's  wife, 
and  the  whole  of  tradition  demanded  that  she  should  be  at  his 
bedside  now.  So  Mabel  received  one  of  those  "telegraphts" 
of  which  she  was  so  dashing  a  sender,  and  the  next  morning 
saw  her  at  Pookwell,  very  hectic  and  tearful,  but  quite  soft 
towards  Bob,  who  had  captured  all  her  physical  pity  now. 

He  lay  in  a  curiously  broken  attitude  under  the  bed-clothes 
—somehow  his  attitude  suggested  a  body  utterly  broken. 
There  were  two  red,  hard  spots  of  colour  on  his  cheeks,  and 
his  eyes  were  brilliant  and  restless. 

"Hallo,  Mabel  .  .  ."  he  said  when  he  saw  her,  but  seemed 
unable  for  further  speech.    She  sat  by  him  for  about  ten  min- 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  307 

utes,  holding  his  hand,  then  rose  to  go  when  the  doctor  came, 
kissing  his  hot  cheek  before  she  went. 

During  the  next  two  days  he  was  kept  very  much  under 
the  influence  of  drugs,  for  the  pain  was  great.  In  one  or  two 
lucid  intervals  he  spoke  to  Clem.    Once  he  said: 

"It'll  be  good  fur  Mabel  if  I  die — I  never  thought  of  that 
when  I  chaanged  my  mind  about  drawnding  myself  .  .  .  maybe 
I  shud  ought  to  have  thought  of  her,  but  my  heart  wur  that 
full  I  cud  think  of  naun  but  how  beautiful  it  wur  to  live  in 
the  lovely  warld." 

Another  time  he  apologized  to  his  brother: 

"I  know  as  you  and  Poll  dudn't  want  me  to  go  out  and  spik 
to  folkses  about  wot  had  happened  to  me  .  ,  .  but  when  I 
wur  sitting  there  wud  the  sun  all  shining  on  me  and  the  liddle 
green  gooseberries  in  the  plaate  .  .  .  and  outside  the  blue 
sky  and  the  vv'hite  and  yaller  flowers  .  .  .  then  I  thought  as 
I  mun  go  and  tell  everyone  as  God  is  love  and  as  all  things 
lovely  are  a  part  of  His  love  .  .  .  and  how  it  aun't  true  about 
wrath  and  hell  and  all  them  scaring  things.  .  .  .  He  said: 
^Consider  the  lilies' — that  just  means  'look  at  the  flowers — 
daisies  and  oxeyes  and  milkmaids  and  such.  .  ,  .* " 

Clem  could  not  extract  any  information  from  him  likely  to 
lead  to  the  arrest  of  his  assailants. 

"Reckon  it  wur  one  of  their  rough  jokes  .  ,  ,  lik  a  lot  of 
calves.  ...  I  didn't  notice  no  one  in  particular — and  reckon 
it  wur  a  bit  my  own  doing.  ...  I  shudn't  ought  to  have 
fought  so  .  .  .  but  I  wur  so  tar'ble  scared  of  being 
drownded." 

When,  at  the  end  of  the  second  day,  it  became  pretty  cer- 
tain that  he  would  not  live,  Clem  asked  him  if  he  wished  him 
and  Polly  to  keep  the  child,  always  supposing,  as  was  most 
likely,  Mabel  did  not  want  him. 

"Surelye — ^you  mun  kip  him.    He's  more  your'n  than  mine." 

"Bob—you  doan't  want — shud  you  want  me  to  have  him 
brung  up  in  your  religion?" 

Robert  was  silent  for  a  moment,  looking  out  of  the  pale 
sky,  translucent  with  a  dying  sunset.    Then  he  said  slowly: 


3o8  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

"If  you  know  of  an  easier  way  to  God  than  mine,  you  mun 
show  it  to  him." 

Clem  felt  something  hard  and  thick  rising  in  his  throat. 
He  put  out  his  hand,  and  laid  it  over  Bob's — all  brown  and 
calloused,  but  now  strangely  helpless  under  his  own. 

"Oh,  Bob,  it  sims  unaccountable  hard  as  you  shud  die  in 
the  middle  of  the  month  of  May." 

"Reckon  it  sims  hard,  seeing  as  I'd  got  back  my  taaste  fur 
living,  as  you'd  say  .  .  .  and,  Clem,  I  feel  tar'ble  queer,  wud 
this  pain  and  the  stuff  the  doctor  gives  me,  and  all  .  .  .  and 
I  doan't  lik  dying — it  scares  me.  But  I've  a  feeling  as  if  I 
go  to  the  Lord  God  I'll  only  be  going  into  the  middle  of  all 
that's  alive.  ...  If  I'm  wud  Him  I  can't  never  lose  the  month 
of  May.  .  .  .  Oh,  when  I  think  of  how  He  called  me  all 
those  years  agone,  and  I  running  away  all  scared  lik  a  silly 
sheep — and  saying  as  I'd  sarve  Him  out  .  .  .  oh,  reckon  it's 
He  that's  sarved  me  out — caught  me  and  sarved  me  out,  and 
got  the  everlasting  laugh  of  me." 

x\nd  feebly  from  his  sick-bed  Bob  joined  in  the  laugh  of 
God. 

Clem  read  the  Bible  to  him  now  and  then,  but  he  was  not 
able  to  stand  much,  and  towards  the  end — on  the  third  evening 
— he  was  quite  unconscious,  under  the  influence  of  the  merci- 
ful drug.  Clem  and  Mabel  and  Elizabeth  and  Polly  with  little 
Xat  in  her  arms  were  in  the  room  when  he  died.  But  he  saw 
none  of  them.  It  was  dusk,  and  the  warm  mist  of  May  hung 
in  the  garden,  the  trees  and  the  flowers  standing  stirless  in 
the  grey  light.  Robert  lay  in  the  bed,  his  face  towards  the 
window,  breathing  heavily.  Suddenly  there  was  a  faint  tremor, 
the  breath  for  a  mom.ent  became  more  natural,  and  he  mur- 
mured some  indistinct  words  that  sounded  like  "queer 
dreams"  and  "shadders  of  trees  on  the  road."  Then  his  breath 
gathered  itself  into  a  deep  sigh  .  .  .  and  stopped. 

§  32 

He  was  buried  in  the  graveyard  of  the  Throws  chapel, 
where  his  father  lay.     The  funeral  took  place  early  in  the 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  309 

morning,  for  the  family  did  not  want  "a  lot  of  folk  staring 
araound."  The  secret  of  it  was  well  kept,  and  no  one  was 
at  the  graveside  but  the  relations. 

Naturally,  local  opinion  against  Robert  had  a  good  deal 
relented.  He  had  a  better  reputation  dead  than  ever  he  had 
had  alive.  This  may  have  been  due  in  a  measure  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  said  or  done  nothing  to  lead  to  any  arrests  among 
his  persecutors.  He  had  died  game,  if  other^\^se  ignobly. 
There  was  an  inquest,  of  course,  but  it  led  to  nothing  but  a 
verdict  of  "Manslaughter  against  some  person  or  persons  un- 
known." None  of  the  witnesses  who  stood  up  and  blundered 
their  way  out  of  the  net  of  the  Coroner's  questions  would 
acknowledge  having  laid  hands  on  the  deceased.  "It  wur 
just  a  lot  of  chaps  larking  round,  and  you  cudn't  see  wot  wur 
happening,  surelye."  In  the  end  the  Law  dismissed  Robert's 
death  as  a  practical  joke — "a  lark  that  went  too  far"  was  the 
heading  under  which  the  local  paper  reported  it. 

The  evening  before  the  funeral  Clem  and  Polly  had  lined 
the  grave  with  late  primroses  and  cuckoo-flowers  and  butter- 
cups. They  were  still  fairly  fresh  when  Bob's  coffin  was 
lowered  down  on  them,  with  two  wreaths  of  white  composite 
and  black  jute,  one  from  the  widow  and  one  from  the  rest 
of  the  family.  These  represented  an  almost  sentimental  gen- 
erosity, since  they  were  to  be  buried  with  him,  for  Jim  was 
anxious  that  Bob's  grave  should  not  be  made  conspicuous  by 
funeral  adornments — "maybe  later,  when  folkses  have  disre- 
membered  a  bit,  then  we  can  put  up  a  stoan."  So  the  two 
masterpieces  of  the  artificial  florist's  art  went  down  into  the 
grave  like  some  old-time  offering  to  the  dead — "from  his  ever- 
sorrowing  Widow.  Not  lost  but  gone  before,"  and  "With 
fondest  love  and  sympathy  from  Mother,  Jim,  Mary,  Clem, 
Polly,  and  Little  Nat — Daddy's  gone  to  be  with  the  Angels." 

It  was  a  dull  morning,  with  pale  lifts  of  light  in  the  grey 
sky.  The  hawthorn  stood  out  with  an  almost  luminous  white- 
ness against  the  low  clouds,  and  the  buttercup  fields  were  bronz- 
ing with  the  early  sorrels  of  June.  A  soft  wind  panted  up 
from  the  Rother,  bringing  with  it  mysteriously  the  scent  of 
water. 


qio  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 


vj 


Mr.  Vine  stood  at  the  head  of  the  grave,  and  offered  up 
the  prayers,  which  included  everybody  except  Robert.  Mabel 
stood  next  to  him,  her  weeds  flying  out  in  the  wind.  She 
looked  very  smart  and  pretty  in  her  v/eeds,  which  had  been 
bought  expensively  in  Bulverhythe.  The  tears  were  running 
out  of  the  comers  of  her  eyes  ...  for  some  obscure  reason 
she  grasped  a  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  Polly  was  crying  too, 
but  Clem's  eyes  were  quite  dry;  he  seemed  to  have  cried  all 
the  tears  that  were  in  him  during  the  four  dreadful  days 
between  Robert's  death  and  burial  .  .  .  now  heliad  only  one 
emotion  left — anger  at  Mary,  because  she  had  not  bought  new 
mourning,  but  was  wearing  the  old,  tight  things  she  had  worn 
at  his  father's  funeral  .  .  .  she  probably  did  not  think  Bob 
worth  spending  money  on.  Clem  and  Polly  were  recklessly 
clad  from  head  to  foot  in  brand  new  blacks — instead  of  his 
usual  bowler  Clem  wore  a  soft-brimmed  hat,  in  which,  with 
his  woolly  hair,  he  looked  like  an  Italian  organ-grinder  .  .  . 
he  stood  fumbling  and  pleating  it  in  his  black  kid  fingers  as 
he  glared  at  Mary,  whose  jacket  was  held  over  her  aggressive 
bosom  by  a  huge,  funereal-looking  safety-pin.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  And  in  that  grave  lay  Bob,  who  had  sat  on  his  bed 
in  the  big,  low-pitched  room  and  told  him  all  the  secrets  and 
adventures  of  a  Man's  life  .  .  .  that  was  Bob  who  had  been 
the  scandal  of  the  Woolpack  and  the  Royal  George,  who  had 
wagered  in  shillings  and  drunk  in  quarts  .  .  .  who  had  gam- 
bled at  Lingfield  races  with  the  gipsies,  and  borrowed  Clem's 
money  .  .  .  and  loved  Hannah  Iden.  .  .  .  And  Clem  had 
watched  Bob  being  slowly  beaten  to  his  knees  by  that  power 
he  had  once  challenged  till  there  was  nothing  of  his  old  pride 
and  glory  left,  till  he  finished  as  the  servant  of  the  httle  brother 
he  had  taught  and  despised.  In  this  dust  the  Man  had  ended, 
to  this  lonely  bed  the  Lover  had  come.  .  .  . 

His  thoughts  had  travelled  away  from  Mary  and  her  short- 
comings, and  came  back  to  find  the  party  at  the  graveside 
dispersing.  This  time  there  were  no  funeral  cabs;  they  all 
walked  back  in  groups  and  couples — first  went  Mabel  and 
Elizabeth,  then  Jim  and  Harry  Wheelsgate  and  Mary,  and  last 
of  all  Clem  and  Polly,  a  little  uneasy  in  the  company  of  Mus' 


GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST  311 

Vine,  who  walked  with  them  as  far  as  the  street.  He  talked 
about  the  weather  and  the  crops,  as  if  poor  Bob,  who  was 
uppermost  in  all  their  minds,  had  become  somehow  indecent 
as  a  topic  of  conversation — and  Clem  knew  that  at  home,  too, 
they  would  be  talking  of  the  weather  and  the  crops,  and  Bob 
would  never  be  mentioned  among  them  except  with  a  lowering 
of  the  eyelids  and  the  voice. 

''Yes,  you'll  soon  be  able  to  cut  in  the  river  field.  ...  I 
hope  the  sorrel  won't  be  the  plague  it  was  last  year.  .  .  , 
Good-bye." 

Mus'  Vine  shook  hands  with  them  at  the  entrance  to  the 
village,  where  his  cottage  stood.  He  held  their  hands  a  little 
longer  than  was  necessary,  to  tell  them  that  he  sympathized; 
and  spoke  of  the  crops  only  because  he  was  not  quite  sure 
whether  they  would  like  to  speak  of  Bob.  .  .  . 

WTien  he  was  gone  Clem  put  his  arm  into  Polly's.  The 
others  were  far  on  in  front. 

"Oh,  Poll  .  .  ."  he  said. 

"Doan't  you  fret,  my  dear." 

"I  can't  help  it  .  .  .  when  I  think  of  him  ,  .  .  how  he 
used  to  go  up  this  here  street  wud  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
.  .  .  and  the  check  breeches  as  he  always  wore." 

"Reckon  you're  thinking  of  him  as  he  wudn't  lik  you  to 
think." 

"Maybe." 

"He'd  sooner  you  thought  of  him  after  he'd  lamed  better 
ways." 

"He  wur  a  decent  chap.  Poll.  I  know  as  people  here  are 
set  agaunst  him,  and  as  even  his  own  folk  haven't  much  to 
say  fur  him  .  .  .  somehow,  wotsumdever  he  did,  living  or 
dying,  he  cudn't  help  maaking  it  shocking  .  .  .  but  he  wur  a 
good  chap,  the  best  I've  known." 

"Surelye,"  said  Polly,  "if  Bob  had  only  had  sense  he  might 
have  come  to  be  a  saint  and  martyr — who  knows?  He  had 
the  makings  of  one!  but  he  had  no  sense — if  he'd  had  sense 
he'd  be  alive  now." 

"Reckon  he  did  wot  he  thought  right." 

'That's  why  it's  a  pity  it  wurn't  sense.     Howsumdever, 


If 


312  GREEN  APPLE  HARVEST 

doan't  you  fret  over  him,  my  dearie.    We've  got  his  liddle  boy 
at  home,  to  be  the  joy  and  comfort  of  us  both." 

Her  eyes  lit  up,  and  she  drew  Clem's  arm  closer  against  her 
heart.  Then  they  mended  their  pace,  for  a  thin  shower  was 
spattering  in  the  dust. 


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